About the Centre · Founded 2007 · No. 6 Kani Road, Bori
A small organisation with a long memory
The People Advancement Centre was founded in Bori in 2007 as a space for solidarity building and the rediscovery of civic voice. We document what happens to Ogoni land and Ogoni people, we check official claims against what communities can see, and we publish the difference with the sources attached. This page explains where we came from, what we are and are not, the record we stand on, and how we handle facts.
001 / Origin
Why a centre, and why Bori
The Centre opened in 2007 at No. 6 Kani Road in Bori, the town where the Ogoni Bill of Rights was adopted in 1990. That address is not incidental. Bori is close enough to the affected communities that people can reach us on foot or by a short shared ride, and far enough from Port Harcourt that our attention is not pulled towards the offices where decisions are announced rather than the places where they land.
By 2007 the Ogoni struggle already had a formidable public record: a bill of rights adopted in 1990 and carried as far as Geneva, roughly 300,000 people mobilised on the first Ogoni Day in January 1993 in defiance of a government ban, nine men hanged at Port Harcourt in November 1995, and Shell withdrawn from Ogoniland. What did not exist, in the ordinary daily sense, was a local place where the evidence of what came afterwards was gathered, dated and kept.
That was the gap. A community could know with complete certainty that its stream had turned and its cassava had failed, and still have nothing a lawyer, a regulator or a journalist could use. Grievance without paperwork is easy to wait out. So the Centre was set up to do the slow half of the work: sit through the meetings, write down the dates and the names, keep the photographs, and be present when a Joint Investigation Visit is convened and a single word on a form decides whether compensation is payable at all.
We describe ourselves as a space for building solidarity and the rediscovery of civic voice through mobilisation and social action, established to challenge systemic exploitation and the misuse of resources by working alongside the mass movements of the Niger Delta. Neither half of that is a slogan. Rebuilding civic voice is unglamorous work: a woman who asks the contractor for the water scheme design; a youth council that keeps its own log of spill dates; a village that refuses to sign a document it has not read. Solidarity building means that when a community in Tai faces something, a community in Khana that faced it three years earlier knows what happened next.
The founding proposition
Ogoniland has never suffered from a shortage of moral argument. It has suffered from a shortage of dated, located, checkable evidence in the hands of the people who live there.
002 / What we are for
Our mission, and the boundaries around it
Our mission is to strengthen the ability of Ogoni communities to hold power to account over their land, water and health: documenting what is happening, putting that documentation in front of the bodies that can compel a change, and making sure people know their entitlements before they need them. Being clear about what we do not do is part of the same discipline. An organisation that lets people believe it can do everything ends up trusted for nothing.
We do
- Document pollution incidents with dates, locations, photographs and the paperwork that follows them.
- Compare official cleanup claims with what communities report on the ground, and publish both.
- Support communities before, during and after a Joint Investigation Visit, so the record made at the time is one they can live with.
- Escalate to the bodies that can compel — regulators, the National Assembly, transparency mechanisms, investors and, where they exist, courts abroad.
- Explain rights, deadlines and forms in language people can act on.
- Work alongside the movements that carry this struggle, rather than in front of them.
- Keep the record of the Ogoni Bill of Rights, Ogoni Day and the Ogoni Nine accurate and public, because it is the basis of every present demand.
We do not
- We are not a service delivery body. We do not build boreholes, run clinics or distribute relief. If you need those, we will help you identify who is responsible for providing them and press that case — but we will not pretend the responsibility is ours.
- We are not the cleanup operator. Remediation in Ogoniland is carried out through the Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project, which sits under the Federal Ministry of Environment. We scrutinise HYPREP; we are not part of it, and we cannot award a contract, hire a labourer or certify a site.
- We are not a political party and we do not campaign for candidates. We take positions on decisions — on resumption of oil production, on land acquisition, on how cleanup money is spent — not on who should hold office.
- We are not a substitute for a lawyer. What we publish is general information. A specific claim needs qualified legal representation.
003 / The ground we stand on
A bill of rights, a day, and nine men
Everything the Centre argues for rests on a document adopted in this town. The Ogoni Bill of Rights was adopted at Bori in 1990 — sources differ on the month, so we write only the year — and set out four demands. It was presented to the Federal Government of Nigeria, to the United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Peoples in Geneva, and to international bodies including Greenpeace. In the same year the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People was founded by Ken Saro-Wiwa and Ogoni chiefs as an umbrella body for a population of roughly 700,000; its current president is Fegalo Nsuke.
The first Ogoni Day was held on 4 January 1993. A government ban on public gatherings was in force; MOSOP mobilised about 300,000 people regardless, and leaders were arrested afterwards. Later that year Shell withdrew its workforce from Ogoniland and extraction fell to roughly 10,000 barrels per day, about 0.5 per cent of the national total. Ogoni Day has been commemorated every January since. The January 2026 gathering was held here at Bori, in Khana Local Government Area, addressed by Rivers State Governor Siminalayi Fubara and by Fegalo Nsuke on the theme of unity as the precondition for justice.
The four demands, and where each stands in 2026
We are often asked what has actually changed since 1990. The honest answer is that the four demands remain substantially unmet, and saying so is not pessimism but the starting point of any serious conversation. The right-hand column records public evidence with its source and date, not our impressions.
| Demand in the Ogoni Bill of Rights (1990) | Where that demand stands in 2026 |
|---|---|
| Political control of Ogoni affairs by Ogoni people | Largely unmet. The question of resuming oil production has been driven from Abuja: in January 2025 President Tinubu hosted Ogoni leaders and directed the National Security Adviser to open dialogue, and the Ogoni Dialogue Committee submitted recommendations to the President in September 2025. MOSOP publicly rejected the resumption moves in September 2025 and said in May 2026 that the President was “not sincere” with the Ogoni. In February 2026 hundreds protested across 17 communities in Tai LGA. |
| Control and use of Ogoni economic resources for Ogoni development | Largely unmet. Shell completed the sale of SPDC to the Renaissance consortium in March 2025 for US$2.4bn; in July 2025 seven UN special rapporteurs and working groups wrote to Shell and other majors saying the divestments “lacked transparency”. In August 2026, 51 civil society organisations demanded a moratorium on the Yorla South field after a bid was won by Dutchford Exploration and Production Company Limited, together with disclosure of licensing and ownership. |
| Adequate and direct representation as of right in all Nigerian national institutions | Contested. Ogoni representation exists inside cleanup governance — HYPREP has a Governing Council, a Board of Trustees of the Ogoni Trust Fund and a Central Representative Advisory Committee — but its security is questionable: Project Coordinator Prof. Nenibarini Zabbey was removed on 13 July 2024 and reinstated on 15 July 2024 after MOSOP protested the appointment of a non-Ogoni replacement. |
| The right to protect the Ogoni environment and ecology from further degradation | Unmet in substance. UNEP found in 2011 that restoration would take 25–30 years. HYPREP stated in August 2026 that 30 of 65 contaminated sites were fully remediated; independent reporting by Dataphyte in May 2023 found that of 21 sites it checked, none could support agriculture. Spills from the Yorla field at Kpean in August and December 2025 had, as of late January 2026, still not been cleaned up. |
The Ogoni Nine
On 21 May 1994 four MOSOP figures — Edward Kobani, Alfred Badey, Samuel Orage and Theophilus Orage — were killed at Gokana. Ken Saro-Wiwa was arrested the following day. A military tribunal convicted nine men; Amnesty International called the trial a sham. All nine were hanged on 10 November 1995 at Port Harcourt prison. They were Ken Saro-Wiwa, Barinem Kiobel, John Kpuinen, Baribor Bera, Saturday Dobee, Felix Nuate, Nordu Eawo, Paul Levura and Daniel Gbokoo. Spellings of some names vary between sources; we use the forms most commonly published and note the variation rather than presenting one as definitive.
On 12 June 2025, Democracy Day, President Bola Tinubu announced a posthumous pardon and national honours for the Ogoni Nine. MOSOP welcomed the recognition but demanded exoneration rather than pardon, and the distinction matters: a pardon presupposes a crime. Celestine AkpoBari, coordinator of the Ogoni Solidarity Forum, rejected the pardon outright.
“You cannot pardon someone that has not committed an offense; we are demanding total exoneration… To say ‘pardon’, I think it is insulting. If there is any group who needs pardon, it is the Nigerian government.”
Celestine AkpoBari, Ogoni Solidarity Forum coordinator, June 2025
We record that exchange because it explains how the Centre reads official gestures. Recognition offered on terms that leave the original verdict standing is not the same as justice, and treating it as though it were would misrepresent what the families and the movement have actually asked for.
004 / Timeline
The wider record, and ours inside it
The Centre is one small part of a much longer story, and we think it is more useful to show our own actions inside that story than to list them on their own. The rows marked PAC are ours. Where an outcome is unresolved or unknown to us, the table says so.
| Date | Event | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| 1990 | Ogoni Bill of Rights adopted at Bori. MOSOP founded by Ken Saro-Wiwa and Ogoni chiefs. | The four demands set here remain the reference point for every subsequent negotiation. |
| 4 January 1993 | First Ogoni Day. About 300,000 people mobilised despite a government ban on public gatherings; leaders later arrested. | Established mass non-violent mobilisation as the movement’s method. Shell withdrew its workforce from Ogoniland the same year. |
| 10 November 1995 | The Ogoni Nine hanged at Port Harcourt prison after a military tribunal Amnesty International called a sham. | The event that internationalised the Ogoni case and that every later demand is measured against. |
| PAC — 2007 | People Advancement Centre founded at No. 6 Kani Road, Bori-Ogoni. | A permanent local base for documentation and civic organising between commemorations. |
| 4 August 2011 | UNEP publishes the Environmental Assessment of Ogoniland: 200+ locations over 14 months, 4,000+ samples, benzene above 900 times the WHO guideline at Nisisioken Ogale. | Converted a political argument into a scientific record, and recommended a restoration authority and an initial US$1bn fund. |
| PAC — 2015 | Campaigned over the Nigeria Customs Service seizure of the Ken Saro-Wiwa memorial bus donated by UK organisations. | Memory and current rights are not separate files; obstructing one signals the treatment of the other. |
| June 2016 | Ogoniland cleanup formally flagged off by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo. | Five years after UNEP reported. The starting gun communities are still measuring progress from. |
| 2017 | HYPREP Project Coordination Office established, under the Federal Ministry of Environment. | Gave the cleanup an operational body, a budget line and an address to hold to account. |
| PAC — 2018 | Campaigned against the Rivers State acquisition of roughly 200 hectares of Ogoni farmland for a banana plantation. | Raised the consent and compensation questions now being asked again about oil resumption. |
| 29 January 2021 | Dutch Court of Appeal in The Hague holds Shell Nigeria liable for pollution at three Niger Delta locations, finds a parent-company duty of care on leak detection, and orders a leak detection system installed. | First major European ruling establishing that a parent company can owe duties over a Nigerian subsidiary’s spills. |
| 12 February 2021 | UK Supreme Court rules that the Ogale and Bille communities’ claims against Shell can proceed in English courts. | Opened a forum that Nigerian communities can realistically reach. The main trial is listed for 2027. |
| PAC — 26 February 2023 | Filed a complaint with the EITI International Board arguing that Shell’s status as a Supporting Company was untenable, citing systematic failure to prevent and clean up pollution across the Niger Delta. | On the public record. We are not aware of any published Board decision on the complaint, and we do not claim one. |
| PAC — 7 November 2023 | Executive Director AkpoBari Celestine Nkabari spoke outside Norges Bank Investment Management in Oslo after meeting the bank. | Pressing the investor side as well as the operator. |
| PAC — 4 January 2024 | Ogoni Day statement, “Looking forward but walking backward”. | An annual public assessment of the distance between commitments and delivery. |
| PAC — 16 November 2024 | Joined a civil society warning against awarding Ogoni cleanup contracts to politicians. | Contracting integrity became a National Assembly question the following year. |
| 13–14 March 2025 | Shell completes the sale of SPDC to Renaissance (ND Western, Aradel Holdings, FIRST Exploration & Petroleum Development, Waltersmith and Petrolin) for US$2.4bn. SPDC renamed Renaissance Africa Energy Company Ltd. | Changes who operates the assets, but Shell plc remains a defendant in the UK Ogale and Bille litigation. |
| 12 June 2025 | President Tinubu announces a posthumous pardon and national honours for the Ogoni Nine. | MOSOP welcomed the recognition but demanded exoneration, not pardon. |
| 2 February 2026 and after | Hundreds protest planned resumption of exploration across 17 communities in Tai LGA, led by the Ogoni Liberation Initiative. On 6 August 2026, 51 civil society organisations demand a moratorium on the Yorla South field. | The live dispute: whether wells should be reactivated or decommissioned before the 2011 findings have been answered. |
005 / People and partners
Who does this work
The Centre is deliberately small. Direct contact details for each member of staff are on the contact page, because an organisation that asks communities to be reachable should be reachable itself.
AkpoBari Celestine Nkabari
Executive Director
Leads the Centre’s advocacy and represents it in national and international forums. He also serves as coordinator of the Ogoni Solidarity Forum-Nigeria and is widely quoted in that capacity, including on the June 2025 pardon. Speaking on Arise television in February 2026 he said oil operations would not be allowed to resume until the demands of the Ogoni Bill of Rights are met, and called for clean water and for relief and compensation for spill damage.
Fyneface Dumnamene
Project Officer
Runs the Centre’s project work and is usually the first point of contact for a community that wants documentation support or help preparing for a Joint Investigation Visit. Direct line and email are listed on the contact page.
Sorbarikor Deemua
Gender Desk Officer
Holds the gender desk. Water collection, farming and fishing losses fall unevenly on women, and consultation processes routinely miss them; the desk exists so that this is corrected deliberately rather than left to chance.
Partners
We work in partnership with the Ogoni Solidarity Forum-Nigeria, an Ogoni rights and environmental-justice advocacy network; Social Action; Environmental Rights Action; the Bonadum Foundation; United Action Democracy; and the Movement Against Corruption. Partnership here means shared work and shared statements, not a merger of positions. Where a partner and the Centre differ on a question — and on the resumption question there is a range of views across Ogoni civil society — we say so rather than smoothing it over.
Movements we work alongside
The Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People remains the umbrella body of the Ogoni struggle. Founded in 1990 by Ken Saro-Wiwa and Ogoni chiefs and representing roughly 700,000 Ogoni, it is led today by President Fegalo Nsuke, who said on 2 August 2026 that “in a non-violent struggle, there is no better alternative to dialogue”. The Centre is not part of MOSOP and does not speak for it; we support its work and record its positions accurately, including where they are more accommodating or more confrontational than our own.
The same questions of resource control and environmental protection run across the wider Niger Delta. The Ijaw Youth Council, a pan-Ijaw youth body, issued the Kaiama Declaration on 11 December 1998 demanding resource control, environmental protection and self-determination for the Ijaw — a document that shaped the regional argument well beyond Ijaw communities. The Chikoko Movement is among the allied movements of that period. We could find no source we can cite describing it, so we name it and say no more: better a thin entry than one we cannot stand behind.
006 / How we handle facts
Our sourcing standard
Everything the Centre does depends on being believed by people who have no reason to take our word for it: a regulator, a court, a journalist, a sceptical community meeting. We treat our own accuracy as an operational asset rather than a virtue. These are the rules we apply here and to everything we publish elsewhere.
Every figure carries a source and a date
A number without an owner and a date cannot be checked, and a number that cannot be checked is worth nothing in the forums where these arguments are settled. So we name the source in the sentence itself, not only in a footnote, and every table carries a caption listing its sources and the date we last checked them. Where a claim comes from a body with an interest in the answer — a company, a government agency, or ourselves — we say whose claim it is rather than presenting it as established fact.
Where sources conflict, we print both
The temptation is to choose the figure that supports the argument. We think showing the disagreement is both more honest and more useful, because the size of the gap is often the story.
| Question | One account | Another account |
|---|---|---|
| How much oil was spilled at Bodo in 2008–09? | At least 560,000 barrels (estimate by the claimants’ solicitors, Leigh Day) | About 4,000 barrels (Shell’s figure). The case settled for £55 million in 2014, four months before trial, for 15,600 claimants. |
| How much cleanup progress has there been? | HYPREP, August 2026: 30 of 65 contaminated sites fully remediated, 49 communities connected to potable water | Dataphyte, May 2023: of 21 sites independently checked, none could support agriculture; twelve communities visited had no potable water seven years after launch |
| What caused the August 2025 spill at Kpean? | NOSDRA’s Joint Investigation Visit attributed it to corrosion and recommended immediate wellhead repair and cleanup | NNPC disputed that finding and claimed vandalism. The distinction governs whether statutory compensation is payable. |
| How much money has reached the cleanup? | SPDC JV contributions of US$572m by 2023 against a US$900m pledge, in tranches of $180m (2018), $180m (2019) and $212m (2022) | Oil company representatives put collective contributions at US$900m at the House of Representatives hearing in October 2025. Federal counterpart funding of US$100m was reported as not delivered as promised. |
We check that units mean the same thing
Cleanup reporting mixes “sites”, “lots” and “hectares”, and these are not interchangeable. HYPREP’s June 2025 midterm report describes 50 remediated lots across 17 UNEP-assessed sites closed out and 13 Category N sites certified; its August 2026 statement counts 30 of 65 sites. Those are different measures from different dates and cannot be subtracted from one another. When a figure appears on this site, we say what it counts, who counted it and when.
What we deliberately do not publish
The omissions are as deliberate as the inclusions. We do not publish a compensation rate schedule, because we found no authoritative current source and a wrong rate could cost a family a legitimate claim. We do not claim an outcome to our February 2023 EITI complaint, because none has been published. We do not print an ordinal for the most recent Ogoni Day, because the anniversary counts in circulation are inconsistent and ours would be a derivation rather than a source. We do not describe organisations we cannot cite, and we do not repeat contract figures reported without independent confirmation. If you find a claim here that fails these tests, it is an error and we want to hear about it.
How to send us a correction
Write to info[at]peoplescentre.org or call +234 (0) 803 273 3965. Tell us the page, quote the sentence you think is wrong, and if you can, point us at the source that says otherwise — a document, a report, a dated photograph, a form. We will check it. If we were wrong we will change the page and say what changed; if we were right we will tell you why we think so and show you the source. Corrections from people who disagree with us are welcome on exactly the same terms as corrections from people who agree.
Come and find us in Bori
We are at No. 6 Kani Road, Bori-Ogoni, Rivers State. If your community is facing a spill, a land acquisition or a consultation you do not trust, bring what you have — the dates, the photographs, the forms — and we will work out together what can be done with it.
Last reviewed August 2026. Figures on this page are attributed to their source and date because published cleanup numbers vary by unit and by year. If you believe something here is wrong or out of date, write to us and we will check it and correct the page.