According to Shell Oil's own figures, between 1958 and 1993, the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria took 634 million barrels of oil from Ogoni, valued at US$5.2 billion. The Ogoni themselves believe that $30 billion worth of oil has been taken from their land. In spite of their vast oil wealth, the overwhelming majority of Ogonis today still lack electricity and pipe-borne drinking water. Beyond this, their economy which is based overwhelmingly on subsistence farming and fishing has been greatly damaged by the pollution from gas flaring and repeated oil spills and blowouts.
 

The Ogoni first came to worldwide attention in the 1990s. Unwilling any longer to accept fundamental violations of their human rights, the environmental devastation of their homeland or their continued abject poverty despite living on an oil-rich land, Ogoni leaders drafted a charter document outlining their self-determination claims entitled The Ogoni Bill of Rights. The Ogoni Bill of Rights was originally presented to the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the transnational oil companies in 1990. An additional addendum was added to the Ogoni Bill of Rights in 1991 to bring the Ogoni struggle for non-violent change to an international audience.
 

After receiving no response to their demands for more than two years, on January 4, 1993, under the leadership of Ken Saro-Wiwa and the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), approximately 300,000 Ogoni came out in a series of rallies to declare Shell Oil persona non grata in Ogoniland. A few months later, Shell officially ceased production in Ogoniland which, according to a MOSOP press release, made the Ogoni "the first indigenous people in the history of our planet to force a transnational oil company to leave our land by peaceful means."
 

Unfortunately, though, the Nigerian state and the transnational oil companies chose to respond to the Ogoni's peaceful demands with brutal repression. Most estimates are that somewhere between 2,000-3,000 Ogoni were killed between 1993-1995 and tens of thousands of Ogonis were forced to flee their homes as internally-displaced persons or as international refugees. The Greenpeace report Shell-Shocked: The Environmental and Social Costs of Living with Shell in Nigeria and the Human Rights Watch report The Ogoni Crisis: A Case-Study of Military Repression in Southeastern Nigeria were two of the earliest NGO reports dealing with the Ogoni crisis.
 

After four traditional Ogoni chiefs (two of whom, Chief Edward N. Kobani and Chief Albert T. Badey, were from Bodo City) were murdered in Giokoo, Gokana Kingdom (about 15 minutes drive from Bodo City) on May 21, 1994, the Nigerian military put Ken Saro-Wiwa and 14 other Ogonis on trial either for their murder or for inciting others to murder them. The Ogonis were not tried in a civil court with procedural safeguards but rather were tried by a special military tribunal. Their sham trial was fundamentally flawed in numerous ways and has been condemned by various governments, NGOs and an official United Nations fact-finding mission. On October 31, 1995, the military tribunal found six of the Ogoni defendants innocent and sentenced Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight others to death. Ken Saro-Wiwa's closing statement to the military tribunal remains one of the most succinct and poignant statements ever delivered by any non-violent freedom fighter in the world. On November 10, 1995, Ken Saro-Wiwa, John Kpuinen, Barinem Kiobel, Baribor Bera, Saturday Dobee, Nordu Eawo, Paul Levera, Felix Nuate and Daniel Gbokoo were hanged in a process that former British Prime Minister John Major described as "judicial murder."
 

If you are interested in learning more about Ken Saro-Wiwa, the best place to start is by reading one of his books. His most sustained political statement and "the Bible of the Ogoni struggle" is entitled A Month and a Day: A Detention Diary . His two most highly regarded literary works are Sozaboy: A Novel in Rotten English and the short story collection A Forest of Flowers. His eldest son Ken Wiwa has also written a critically-acclaimed memoir entitled In the Shadow of a Saint: A Son's Journey to Understand His Father's Legacy and his younger brother Owens Wiwa has been profiled in The Politics of Bones.
 

The issues originally raised in the Ogoni Bill of Rights have now been taken up by a variety of other peoples in the Niger Delta including the Annang, Ibibio, Ijaw, Ikwerre, Itsekiri, Kalabari, Ndoki, Nembe, Oron and Urhobo. Many of these groups have also issued their own charter documents setting out self-determination claims modeled on the Ogoni Bill of Rights. Examples here include the Ikwerre Rescue Charter and the Ijaws' Kaiama Declaration.
 

Unfortunately, even after its return to democratic elections in 1999, the Nigerian state continues to respond to just demands for change from the oil-producing communities in the Niger Delta with violence and massive human rights violations. Human Rights Watch has published more recent reports detailing the violence still directed here at the Ogoni and other oil-producing communities. The Price of Oil: Corporate Responsibility and Human Rights Violations in Nigeria's Oil-Producing Communities is perhaps the most comprehensive report yet written on human rights violations in the Niger Delta. Subsequent abuses since its publication, including some in K-Dere, Gokana Kingdom (about 10 minutes drive from Bodo City) are detailed in Update on Human Rights Violations in the Niger Delta and The Niger Delta: No Democratic Dividend. The continued problems of violence and human rights abuses in Rivers State, where the schools are located, are detailed in Rivers and Blood: Guns, Oil and Power in Nigeria’s Rivers State.  The devastating effects that corruption has on primary education and basic health care in Rivers State are described in Chop Fine: The Human Rights Impact of Local Government Corruption and Mismanagement in Rivers State, Nigeria.  

Amnesty International has addressed the human rights situation in the Niger Delta in Nigeria: Are Human Rights in the Pipeline? and Nigeria: Ten Years On: Injustice and Violence Haunt the Oil Delta.  In June 2009, Amnesty released the landmark report Petroleum, Pollution and Poverty in the Niger Delta.  The International Crisis Group has also analyzed the recent upsurge in militant activity in The Swamps of Insurgency: Nigeria's Delta Unrest.  A wonderful photographic introduction to oil production in the Niger Delta is the book Curse of the Black Gold: 50 Years of Oil in the Niger Delta.  
 

If you want to learn more, there are a number of good Nigerian non-governmental organizations working on issues related to the Niger Delta.  Some of the best places to start include the Center for the Environment, Human Rights and Development, Environmental Rights Action, the Niger Delta Women for Justice and the Stakeholder Democracy Network.