In August and December 2008, two major oil spills disrupted the lives of the 69,000 or so people living in Bodo, a town in Ogoniland in the Niger Delta. Both spills continued for weeks before they were stopped. Three years on, the prolonged failure of the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria (Shell), a subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell, to clean up the oil that was spilled, continues to have catastrophic consequences for the Bodo community.

Amnesty International and the Centre for Environment, Human Rights and Development (CEHRD) yesterday declared that Shell must pay an initial $1 billion for clean-up of the pollution.

An estimated 10,000 people from the Ogoni, Ijaw, Yoruba, Hausa, Ikwerre, and other communities from different parts of the state and beyond last night in Port Harcourt, the capital of Rivers State, took over major roads in the city in a mournful and solemn candle light procession to commemorate the 16th anniversary of the death of Ken Saro-Wiwa, Nigeria’s famous writer and activist and his other colleagues.

The Centre for Environment, Human Rights and Development has called on the Nigerian police to re-open its investigation of the murder of Dele Giwa, the late co-founder of Newswatch Magazine, and prosecute those who were responsible for his death.

In a statement issued to commemorate today's 25th anniversary of Mr. Giwa's assassination by a parcel bomb in his home in 1986, CEHRD recalled that the event took place during the Ibrahim Babangida dictatorship.

The concert was one of support and also of invitation to the government by the people of the Port Harcourt waterfront communities to hear the call that "Housing is a Human Right".