Outrage and condemnation have trailed the use of the Ogoni flag during a political campaign rally in Rivers State.
The President of the National Youth Council of Ogoni People, NYCOP, Raymond Nwibani, had raised the Ogoni flag at a campaign rally organised by the Rainbow Coalition Movement in Bori, headquarters of Khana Local Government Area, on Saturday, October 24, 2026.
At the event, Nwibani reportedly claimed that Ogoni youths had endorsed the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Ogundu Chinda, also known as OK Chinda, as their preferred candidate for the 2027 general elections.
The action has since sparked widespread criticism among individuals and groups in Ogoniland, with many calling for stringent sanctions against the youth leader to deter future desecration of the Ogoni collective identity.
One of the strongest reactions came from Ogoni Arise TV, an Ogoni-focused social media platform, which in a post on its official Facebook page on Tuesday, October 27, 2026, described Nwibani’s action as reducing “the hallowed flag to a mere campaign banner.”
“How could a son of Ogoni — and for that matter, the President of NYCOP, a man who should be the foremost custodian of our youth conscience and our collective memory — take the sacred, hallowed Ogoni flag and reduce it to a mere campaign banner for Hon. Chinda? How could he stand before the world and audaciously declare that Ogoni people have resolved to vote for him?” the group queried.
The statement lamented the absence of punitive action from traditional and customary authorities in Ogoni since the visuals of the incident went viral, and accused Nwibani of being emboldened by political patronage to drag a sacred symbol of over a million people into partisan politics for personal gain.
“That flag is a living testament. It is dyed in the blood of Ken Saro-Wiwa and the Ogoni Nine. It carries the inconsolable tears of our mothers, the anguish of our widows, the wasted farms of our farmers, the poisoned rivers of our fishermen, and the choked lungs of our children. It embodies years of torture, years of struggle, years of pain, sacrifice, resilience, and the undying hope of a people who refused to be exterminated,” the statement added.
Meanwhile, the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People, MOSOP, has distanced itself from Nwibani’s pronouncements, stressing that it did not authorise the NYCOP, which is its youth wing, to make such political endorsements.
In a press statement signed by its President, Engr. Andah Wai-Ogosu, MOSOP declared: “The Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) disassociates herself from the reported involvement and pronouncements of Mr. Raymond Nwibani, the President of NYCOP, the Youth wing of MOSOP, at a political rally in Bori on Saturday, 24th October, 2026.”
