MAY sun shine lights the streets of London but Dr Owens Wiwa brother of the hanged writer and environmentalist, Ken Saro Wiwa, shivers, then smiles apologetically. "It's good to be here but I would rather be back in Ogoni. I am a doctor. The people need me. ,I can be of use to them," he says.
Ogoni, measuring 12 miles by 32 in the Niger delta area of Nigeria, is home to 500,000 people who share their land with more than 100 oil wells, a petrochemical complex and to oil refineries. In his rural clinic there, Dr Wiwa found himself treating people with respiratory and skin infections.
"The children especially suffering from hear in he says. "The sound of the oil flares is like three trains rushing past, all at once. You know I look around London and I don't see even a water pipe on the streets, but in Ogoni we have gas and oil pipes running through our farms.
His clinic has also had to look after patients who have been raped and tortured or who have been brought in suffering from gunshot wounds. He sees these as victims of the current wave of violence connected with the activities in Ogoni of oil multinationals like Chevron and Shell. It was while he was trying to investigate a gun attack on a village Oloko, where he counted 25 corpses that Dr Wiwa was arrested for the second time.
"One of the soldiers was ordered to flog me with a koboko [a cable wire whip] and when he refused, he himself was flogged. That went on for three days.
During an earlier detention, his wife, Diana, gave birth to their first child. Now 21/2 Ken Bari Befi Saro Wiwa was named after uncle. Last July, the family forced into hiding in and I left Nigeria following in the November.
Now Dr Wiwa spends his the world drawing attention to what he says is the destruction of his country by Shell and to the military regime in Nigeria.
"I am also looking for justice for Ken," he says and his eyes fill, with tears. "These people have, killed my brother but all I can do is pity them. How can they sleep?"
Of Shell he is unbending "There are other oil companies in Ogoni but I know Shell. If anyone is embarrassed by the truth then I'm sorry, but I must speak. Shell are engaged in a public relations exercise but the Ogoni are dying. This destruction is the totality of ourselves. It is not divide and rule. It is divide and kill.
He was disappointed that President Mandela did not do more to save his brother and those hanged with him. "I don't know much about how power works within the Commonwealth but I do know that Thabo Mbeki has been close to the Nigerian military government, he says.
Last week, MOSOP UK was formed in London. Dedicated to the non violent struggle for the survival of the Ogoni, it will work closely with its partner groups in the US and South Africa as well as with support groups throughout the world.
"We want justice" Dr Wiwa says, "but there will never be democracy in Nigeria until Shell stops collaborating with the military regime."