The Ogoni people are one of the many indigenous peoples in the Niger Delta region of southeast Nigeria. They number about a half million people and live in a 404-square mile homeland which they also refer to as Ogoni. They rose to international notoreity after a massive public protest campaign against Shell Oil, led by the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People. Like many peoples on the Guinea coast, the Ogoni have an internal political structure led by chiefs. Ogoniland is divided into five kingdoms and unlike many other Nigerian minorities, the Ogonis have no myth of their common origin around which to rally. The Niger Delta, the delta of the Niger River in Nigeria, is a densely populated region sometimes called the Oil Rivers because it was once a major producer of palm oil. ... The Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People has struggled against the degradation of their lands by Shell Oil in Nigeria. ...

The Ogoni were integrated into a succession of economic systems at a pace that was extremely rapid and exacted a great toll from them. At the turn of the century, “the world to them did not extend beyond the next three or four villages,” but that soon changed. Ken Saro-Wiwa, the late president of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), described the transition this way: “if you then think that within the space of seventy years they were struck by the combined forces of modernity, colonialism, the money economy, indigenous colonialism and then [the Nigerian Civil] war, and that they had to adjust to these forces without adequate preparation or direction, you will appreciate the bafflement of the Ogoni people and the subsequent confusion engendered in the society.” (Quotes from Ken Saro-Wiwa, "Letter to Ogoni Youth.")