Thirty years after the execution of writer and activist Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other Ogoni leaders, civil society groups on Monday demanded $1 trillion for the cleanup of Ogoniland, alongside justice, accountability, and a halt to renewed oil exploration in the Niger Delta.

At a commemoration held at the headquarters of the Corporate Accountability and Public Participation Africa (CAPPA) in Lagos, the coalition said the November 10, 1995 hanging of Saro-Wiwa and his colleagues -- the Ogoni Nine -- was a judicial murder carried out to protect oil interests. They argued that decades after, pollution, poverty, and neglect remain the daily reality in Ogoni communities.

Rev. Dr. Nnimmo Bassey, Director of the Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF) and Chairman of the anniversary planning committee, said the demands reflect the scale of environmental devastation.

"Ken Saro-Wiwa was murdered not because he disobeyed any law, but because he exposed oppression and questioned a mindless establishment," Bassey said. "Thirty years after, Ogoniland remains polluted, rivers are contaminated, and communities are still denied their livelihoods while oil companies and their collaborators profit. Any economy built without fairness and human dignity is an unsustainable economy."

The groups called for a scientific and independently monitored cleanup, reparations from oil companies, justice for affected communities, decriminalisation of activism, and a permanent halt to oil drilling in Ogoniland.

Comrade Celestine Akpobari, Director of the Miideekor Environmental Development Initiative, said the struggle has not ended.

"The situation in Ogoniland is still as dire as when Saro-Wiwa raised his voice," Akpobari said. "Farming and fishing are impossible, yet government and corporations are more concerned about divestment than remediation. We cannot allow history to repeat itself," he added.

CAPPA's Executive Director, Comrade Akinbode Oluwafemi, condemned recent state actions, including the confiscation of Saro-Wiwa's memorial bus and the presidential pardon of the Ogoni Nine.

"What we see today are hollow gestures that manipulate memory rather than deliver justice," Oluwafemi said, adding, "True reparations mean clean land, clean water, and accountability from the corporations that profited from decades of pollution."

Dr. Prince Edegbuo, Resource Justice Manager at Social Action, warned against reopening oil wells in Ogoniland.

"To extract more oil is to reopen old wounds," Edegbuo said. "The oil must remain in the ground. Ogoni is not an oilfield; it is a homeland, and we must respect the rights and dignity of its people."

The joint statement was signed by ten organisations: HOMEF, CAPPA, Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN), Kebetkache Women Development & Resource Centre, OilWatch International, Social Action, Miideekor Environmental Development Initiative, We The People, Lekeh Development Foundation, and Human and Environmental Development Agenda (HEDA Resource Centre).

Ken Saro-Wiwa and his colleagues -- Saturday Dobee, Nordu Eawo, Daniel Gbooko, Paul Levera, Felix Nuate, Baribor Bera, Barinem Kiobel, and John Kpuine -- were executed on November 10, 1995, after a military tribunal condemned globally as a sham. Their deaths triggered international outrage and Nigeria's suspension from the Commonwealth.

Thirty years on, activists say the fight for clean water, safe soil, and justice for the Ogoni people remains unfinished.