The newly sworn-in president of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), Fegalo Nsuke, has rekindled hope for a free Ogoni in Nigeria.

Nsuke, in an emotion-laden address on New Year ’s Day to the Ogoni people, said freedom for the beleaguered ethnic minority people in Nigeria must be pursued vigorously. The speech followed his assumption of office as the new MOSOP President at the expiration of the tenure of the previous executive on December 31, 2018.

In a new year message to the Ogoni people yesterday morning, Nsuke said: “Today, the Ogoni struggle is reborn, our hope for a better tomorrow is rekindled and we must all be prepared and determined to change our history and let the Ogoni star shine.”

Nsuke further told the massive crowd that thronged the Yeghe, Gokana Local Government Area of Rivers State to witness the swearing-in ceremony that when in 1990, “our progenitors launched the Ogoni struggle with the publication of the Ogoni Bill of Rights, it was a collective move to re-write our history and give us hope.

“Today, that hope is rekindled as we turn a new page and together decide to match on so we can win together.”

Nsuke said that MOSOP will focus strongly on fighting for the political rights of the Ogoni people to self determination, the protection of human rights especially the rights of women, development of their educational standards, development of Ogoni culture and monitoring the implementation of the clean-up exercise amongst others.

Nsuke said MOSOP will continue to challenge the discrimination against the Ogoni people in Nigeria, and lamented that although Ogoni generates 185, 000 barrels of oil daily, everything is shared by the rest of Nigeria and Ogoni gets nothing.

He said that this is the basis of MOSOP struggle, “the reason we are aggrieved and we won’t stop until our political rights to self determination is respected and freedom is won for our people.”

“Ogoni contributes more to the Nigerian economy than 20 Nigerian states put together yet are the poorest in this country. Our huge natural endowments are exploited for the benefit of other Nigerian nationalities and nothing is left for us.

“Over $100 billion dollars have been taken out of our land leaving us with a wreaked environment that is poisoned and unable to support reasonable livelihoods.

“Currently, over 200 persons die weekly from the coastal communities alone and that is a sign that if nothing is done now, the entire Ogoni will eventually die. These are the reasons we have to stand to tell the Nigerian government we can no longer tolerate this injustice,” the MOSOP leader said.

Nsuke, who was on December 19 in Bori alongside his executive, had been a known and outstanding critic of Shell and an advocate of self determination for Ogoni. He served as publicity secretary in the last executive.

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