President Tinubu’s Pardon Of Ken Saro-Wiwa And The Ogoni Nine — A Symbolic Victory, But …

By Amieyeofori Ibim

On June 12, 2025, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu rose before a joint session of Nigeria’s National Assembly and, with solemn authority, delivered a message that echoed through the conscience of the nation. In commemorating Democracy Day, the President announced a long-awaited gesture of moral restitution: a full presidential pardon and posthumous national honours for Ken Saro-Wiwa and the eight other men known collectively as the Ogoni Nine.

“As we mark a twenty-sixth year of unbroken democracy, it is right to honour those who have made sacrifices in the past, braving all the odds and the guns,” President Tinubu said. With that, he offered a symbolic act that no administration had attempted since the execution of the nine environmental activists under the Abacha regime in 1995.

With a stroke of presidential mercy, Ken Saro-Wiwa and his fellow activists—hanged in the dark throes of a dictatorship—were officially redeemed by the very republic that once silenced them. Their names, formerly erased from honour, are now enshrined in the country’s official record of national heroes.

But while the symbolic power of this move is undeniable, Nigerians must ask: will this act lead to substantive change for the people and cause they died defending?

For years, the Nigerian state turned its back on Ogoniland—its land soaked in oil, its rivers poisoned by spills, and its people silenced by both corporate and state power. The UNEP report of 2011 offered a roadmap for environmental restoration. Yet, over a decade later, progress on the Ogoni cleanup has been halting at best, and scandal-ridden at worst.

Ken Saro-Wiwa did not merely protest environmental degradation.

He challenged a system that allowed the exploitation of a people for profit, and that met peaceful protest with brute force. To now declare him a “national hero” is a dramatic reversal—but also an indictment of past and present governance.

In his address, Tinubu stated: “I shall also be exercising my powers under the prerogative of mercy to grant these national heroes a full pardon…” This constitutional authority—rarely used for posthumous recognition—was not just a legal gesture, but a political one. It confronts a historical lie: that Saro-Wiwa and his colleagues were criminals.

They were not. They were patriots, silenced because their voices were too courageous, too inconvenient, and too powerful for a military regime built on fear. Now, three decades later, the Nigerian state finally admits it.

To his credit, President Tinubu’s speech struck a tone of reverence and humility. “Today, as I entered this grand edifice built from the sweat and toil of our democratic yearning, my heart stirred. It was a blend of accomplishment and resolve,” he said. It was perhaps his most honest moment, standing at the intersection of Nigeria’s tortured past and its uncertain future.

But symbolism, no matter how grand, cannot detoxify poisoned water. It cannot clean oil-slicked farmland or employ unemployed Ogoni youth. Real justice demands more than posthumous medals.

It demands action.

The Niger Delta remains one of the most environmentally devastated regions on Earth. The oil that funded Nigeria’s development left behind poisoned ecosystems and impoverished communities. Even with Saro-Wiwa now officially honoured, the cause he championed remains largely unfulfilled.

This is why President Tinubu’s act, while morally commendable, must not be the final word. It must be the first in a series of deliberate policies aimed at healing old wounds with more than just ceremony.

To truly honour the Ogoni Nine, the federal government must accelerate the Ogoni clean-up with urgency and transparency. Communities must be included in decisions. Funds must reach the ground—not be swallowed by bureaucracy and corruption.

The state must also address economic disenfranchisement in the region. Infrastructure, education, healthcare, and sustainable livelihoods are the only true measures of reconciliation.

Moreover, let this moment signal a new posture toward dissent. The same government that pardons Saro-Wiwa must protect today’s environmental defenders and whistleblowers. It cannot simultaneously venerate the voice of a martyr and silence the voices of the living.

There is also the matter of corporate accountability. Shell and other multinational oil companies must not be allowed to walk away from decades of ecological destruction. The President’s move should energize legal and diplomatic efforts to hold them to account—both in Nigeria and abroad.

Finally, education and public memory must reflect this shift. Nigeria’s schoolbooks must teach the real story of the Ogoni Nine—not as rebels, but as heroes. Monuments, public lectures, and community projects in their honour must be institutionalized.

As President Tinubu said in closing, “Let us rededicate ourselves to the ideals of June 12—freedom, transparent and accountable government, social justice, active citizen participation, and a just society where no one is oppressed.” Those are powerful words. But they must be matched with political will.

For now, we applaud the President for this historic correction. But we must also challenge him—and ourselves—not to mistake symbolism for justice, or ceremony for change.

Let this be the beginning of something deeper: a reckoning with history, a redirection of policy, and a renewal of the promise that no Nigerian shall ever again be silenced for demanding justice.

Amieyeofori Ibim is former Editor of The Tide Newspapers, political analyst and public affairs commentator.