Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People

Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People
Abbreviation	MOSOP
Formation	1990
Founders	Ken Saro-Wiwa
Type	Social Movement Organization
Purpose	Indigenous rights of the Ogoni people
Headquarters	Bori, Ogoni, Rivers State, Nigeria
Region	Ogoniland
Membership	Ethnic Minority Rights Organization of Africa (EMIROAF); Federation of Ogoni Women Association (FOWA); National Youth Council of Ogoni People (NYCOP); Ogoni Council of Churches (OCC); Council of Ogoni Traditional Rulers (COTRA); Council of Ogoni Professionals (COP); National Union of Ogoni Students (NUOS); Crisis Management Committee (CMC); Ogoni Teachers Union; Ogoni Technical Association; Ogoni Central Indigenous Authority;
President	Legborsi Saro Pyagbara
Affiliations	Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization; Greenpeace International; Amnesty International;
Award(s)	Right Livelihood Award
Website	mosop.org

The Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), is a social movement organization representing the indigenous Ogoni people of Rivers State, Nigeria. The Ogoni contend that Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC), along with other petroleum multinationals and the Nigerian government, have destroyed their environment, polluted their rivers, and provided no benefits in return for enormous oil revenues extracted from their lands.

MOSOP is an umbrella organization representing about 700,000 Ogoni in a non-violent campaign for environmental justice in the Niger Delta. Peaceful demonstrations led by MOSOP and other indigenous groups in the region have been brutally suppressed by the Nigerian Mobile Police. Thousands of Ogoni were killed, raped, beaten, detained, or exiled. The Ogoni's challenge to state power was finally put down through the judicial murder of Ogoni leaders, including spokesman and founder Ken Saro-Wiwa, in November 1995.

Oil was discovered in the Niger delta in 1957. MOSOP was founded in 1990 by Ken Saro-Wiwa and Ogoni chiefs when they presented the Ogoni Bill of Rights to the Federal government of Nigeria and to the United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Peoples in Geneva.

The Ogoni uprising under the leadership of MOSOP was an early and non-violent phase of the conflict in the Niger Delta.

In 1994, MOSOP, along with founder Ken Saro-Wiwa, received the Right Livelihood Award for their exemplary courage in striving non-violently for the civil, economic and environmental rights of their people.

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