April 9, 2015 – Special Adviser to the President on Research, Documentation and Strategy, Mr. Oronto Douglas is dead. He was 49. He died early this morning at the State House Clinic, a family source has said.
Douglas has not been in the public glare for some time and was in United States not long ago to seek medical help. But he has continued to work behind the scene for the re-election of President Goodluck Jonathan.
A lawyer by profession, Douglas came to prominence as an environmental right activist when he fought in behalf of the oil-producing communities of the Niger Delta.
Born in 1966, Douglas served as one of the lawyers on the defense team for the late leader of Movement for the Survival of Ogoniland Ken Saro Wiwa, who was executed by Nigeria’s junta in 1995.
He co- founded Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria and has served in the board of several non-profit organizations within and outside Nigeria.
Douglas has been named among the 20 most influential writers, thinkers, and activists in the world and was listed in a recent book “Political Awakenings: Conversations with History” by Harry Kreiser the Executive Director of the Institute of International Studies, University of California.
