The Special Adviser to President
Goodluck Jonathan on Research, Documentation and Strategy, Oronto Douglas, is
dead. He died early hours of today Thursday April 9, 2015 at the State House Clinic, from cancer-related complications. From reports gathered, the 49-year-old Douglas was said to have been shattered by Jonathan’s loss at the March
28 presidential elections.
A lawyer by profession. He is a graduate of law from the University of Science and
Technology, Port Harcourt, Nigeria, and De Montford, Leicester, England.
he was born in 1966 and had been
sick for several years but associates of President Jonathan said he
continued to work over the last few weeks for Jonathan’s reelection,
with one source saying he was devastated when his principal lost the
presidential polls.
He came to national and international prominence as an environmental
activist on behalf of the oil-producing communities of the Niger Delta.
.
Douglas is Nigeria’s leading environmental human rights lawyer and
was deputy director of Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth,
Nigeria, and has been a visiting lecturer and speaker at
community-organized events, international conferences, and universities
all over the world. He was a member of the legal team that represented Ken Saro-Wiwa
before he was executed by the Nigerian military junta in November 1995.
His articles and speeches have been published in books, journals, and
magazines in Nigeria, Europe and the United States. His recent book:
"Where Vultures Feast, Shell, Human Rights, and Oil in the Niger Delta"
has been published by Random House.
Douglas, is also known to be a close confidant of
the President.
He is survived by a wife and
children.
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