President Bola Tinubu’s decision to posthumously pardon nine environmental activists executed under Nigeria’s former military regime has reignited longstanding tensions around justice, accountability, and the legacy of state violence.
During a Thursday ceremony marking 26 years since Nigeria’s return to democratic rule, Tinubu announced the pardon of the “Ogoni Nine”, a group that included renowned author and activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, calling them “national heroes.”
But many civil society groups and human rights advocates have pushed back fiercely, arguing that the activists were innocent and should never have needed a pardon to begin with.
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“A pardon is given to people who have been convicted of wrongdoing,” said Ken Henshaw, executive director of rights group We The People. “For him (Tinubu) to say he wants to pardon them is a misnomer.”
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According to an AP report, the Ogoni Nine were convicted of the 1994 murder of four local chiefs amid conflict in Nigeria’s oil-rich Niger Delta. Despite international condemnation of the flawed legal process, they were executed by hanging in 1995 under the brutal military regime of General Sani Abacha.
Their activism had centered on holding multinational oil companies, especially Shell, accountable for the environmental devastation inflicted on the Ogoni region. The executions provoked a global outcry, with human rights organizations condemning the trial as politically motivated and lacking credible evidence.
Isa Sanusi, director of Amnesty International Nigeria, called for a deeper reckoning beyond the symbolic gesture.
“The Nigerian government must also recognize formally that the murdered activists are innocent of any crime and fully exonerate them,” Sanusi said. “Full justice for the Ogoni Nine is only a first step. Much more needs to be done to get justice for communities in the Niger Delta, including holding Shell and other oil companies to account for the damage they have done and continue to do.”
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To critics, Tinubu’s pardon does little to repair the harm caused three decades ago—and by using the language of mercy instead of innocence, it risks reinforcing a false narrative of guilt.
