Unity. Justice. Progress
The Ogoni Liberation Initiative is a non-governmental organization comprising of men, women, traditional rulers, youths and religious leaders from the Ogoni ethnic group in Rivers State, Nigeria. The main aim and objective of the organization is to embark on programs that will enhance the liberation of Ogoni people from all shackles of poverty and to enhance the economic, social and political emancipation of the Ogoni people. To realize this aim and objective, the organization is focused on the following areas:
Education
Education is a key factor in the development of any nation of the world. According to Kofi Annan, “Knowledge is Power, Information is Liberating, Education is the premise of progress in every society, in every family”. Stressing the importance of education, the great Nelson Mandela noted that “Education is the first step for people to gain knowledge, critical thinking, empowerment and skills they need to make this world a better place”. Education plays a crucial role for national development as it provides the necessary manpower to every country. The Ogoni Liberation Initiative recognizes this fact and thus has embarked on several schemes and programs aimed at enhancing the education of the Ogoni people. Some of these schemes include the provision of scholarship to indigents sons and daughters of Ogoni at tertiary institutions, purchase of registration forms and the enrolment of students who intend to write national and international examinations such as West African Examination Council (WAEC), National Examination Council (NECO), Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB). The organization has also noticed that most of the public schools in the rural communities of Ogoni is lacking basic amenities and thus, is also working towards the purchase and distribution of some educational and instructional materials to some public primary and secondary schools in the four Local Government Areas of Ogoni such as Khana, Gokana, Eleme and Tai Local Government Areas.
Environment
The Ogoni environment is the most polluted environment in the Niger Delta part of Nigeria resulting from the decades of oil and gas exploration and exploitation activities on the land by the multi-national oil giant, the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria (SPDC). The Ogoni environment has been highly contaminated, water sources polluted and aquatic lives totally destroyed. The Ogoni people who are predominantly farmers and fishermen can no longer go for their farming and fishing activities leading to food insecurity and hunger in the land. In 2011, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) released a report of an environmental assessment of Ogoni land showing the extensive oil pollution and contamination of the Ogoni environment and drinking water, and recommended a comprehensive cleanup of Ogoniland. However, the Hydrocarbon Pollution and Remediation Project (HYPREP) established to undertake the cleanup has neglected to clean up the land in line with the recommendations of UNEP. The worst of it all is that the process is unnecessarily slow. The Ogoni Liberation Initiative has been agitating for a comprehensive cleanup of Ogoni land in line with the recommendations of UNEP. The Oganisations has consulted international partners with track records in environmental remediation and restoration who are ready to take over the clean up exercise in line with the recommendations of UNEP and international best practices.
Apart from the above, the organization is also focused on the campaign for the use of other sources of energy that are environmentally friendly otherwise known as renewable energy in order to preserve the environment. To this end, the organization in partnership with of her international investors, have trained hundreds of Ogoni Youths on the production and installation of solar power as a source of energy.
Conferences & Workshops
The Ogoni Liberation Initiative understands that human capacity development is very important as it helps individuals, groups to develop their abilities both individually and collectively. One of the ways to enhance human capacity development is the organization of conferences and workshops. To this end the organization in collaboration with some of her local and international investors has been organizing several conferences and workshops aimed at creating awareness and developing our youths on leadership and conflict management. The latest of such conferences is the upcoming first of its kind 2 days conference with the theme “Developing Youths in Leadership Governance and Conflict Management organized by the organization in collaboration with the Chartered Institute of Leadership and Good Governance, United States of America.
Skills Acquisition & Entrepreneurship Development
entrepreneurship development occupies a cardinal role in the economic growth of a country as it helps to bring about innovations, employment generation, capital and wealth creation. The ogoni Liberation Initiative focuses on the training of our teaming unemployed youths to acquire different skills that will make them to be self-employed and productive in the society. The organization understands that not all youths are financially buoyant to acquire formal education up to the tertiary level. Therefore, those who cannot afford formal education should not be left out otherwise they end up constituting nuisance in the society and in return, increase the rate of insecurity. Rather, these youths should be engaged to acquire skills of their choices. To this end, the organization has been training our teaming unemployed youths to acquire different skills in areas such as Welding and Fabrication, Solar Power production and installation, catering, digital media and journalism, etc. The recent is the newly launched Luuwa Youth Empowerment Program (LUYEP) tagged “Know Your Skill” designed to train about 50 youths of Luuwa Community, Khana Local Government Area of Rivers different vocational training. The organization is working tirelessly to train more youths to be good entrepreneurs and call for more partnership from national and international organisations to achieve this.
Free Medical Outreach
The Ogoni Liberation Initiative also carry out medical outreach to render free medical services to indigent community dwellers who have been exposed to various kinds of health hazard resulting from eating food and drinking water from contaminated and polluted sources. It may interest us to know that UNEP recommended among the emergency measures, that a health registry be established to render medical services to community dwellers affected by the environmental pollution caused by the nefarious activities of oil companies. However, HYPREP has failed to carry out this important mandate leaving the people with different kinds of sickness and diseases. The focus of the organization is to ensure that all those affected especially residents of impacted communities are given the required medical attention, thus the medical outreaches in these communities.
Ogoni Liberation Fellowship Program
The Ogoni Liberation Fellowship Program is a weekly worship program of the Organisation tagged the “COVENANT HOUR OF PRAYER” which is held every Saturday morning. We believe that the movement for the liberation of the Ogoni people cannot be achieved without the divine direction of the Almighty God.