Title: Conflict in the Niger Delta - Wikipedia
Headings: Conflict in the Niger Delta
Conflict in the Niger Delta
Contents
Background
Ogoniland
Ijaw unrest (1998–1999)
Creation of the Niger Delta Development Commission (2000–2003)
Timeline
Emergence of armed groups in Niger Delta (2003–2004)
Nigerian oil crisis (2004–2006)
Royal Dutch Shell controversy
Piracy and kidnappings (2006–2014)
Military crackdown (2008–2009)
Presidential amnesty program (2009–2016)
2016–present conflict
See also
References
Further reading
External links

Content: Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People and Ken Saro-Wiwa
Ogoniland is a 1,050-square-kilometre (404-square-mile) region in the southeast of the Niger Delta basin. Economically viable petroleum was discovered in Ogoniland in 1957, just one year after the discovery of Nigeria's first commercial petroleum deposit. Royal Dutch Shell and Chevron Corporation set up shop there throughout the next two decades. The Ogoni people, a minority ethnic group of about half a million people who call Ogoniland home, and other ethnic groups in the region attest that during this time, the government began forcing them to abandon their land to oil companies without consultation, offering negligible compensation. A 1979 constitutional amendment gave the federal government full ownership and rights to all Nigerian territory and also declared that eminent domain compensation for seized land would "be based on the value of the crops on the land at the time of its acquisition, not on the value of the land itself." The Nigerian government could now distribute the land to oil companies as it deemed fit, said the Human Rights Watch. The 1970s and 1980s saw government promised benefits for the Niger Delta peoples fall through and fail to materialize, with the Ogoni growing increasingly dissatisfied and their environmental, social, and economic apparatus rapidly deteriorating. The Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) was formed in 1992, spearheaded by Ogoni playwright and author Ken Saro-Wiwa, became the major organization representing the Ogoni people in their struggle for ethnic and environmental rights. Its primary targets, and at times adversaries, have been the Nigerian government and Royal Dutch Shell . Ogoni Flag created by Ken Saro-Wiwa
Beginning in December 1992, the conflict between the Ogoni and the oil companies escalated to a level of greater seriousness and intensity on both sides.