WHO:
Ken Saro Wiwa was born in on the tenth of October, 1941, in Bori, Nigeria, to the small community known as the Ogoni people. During the 1970s and 80s, he mostly acted as a writer. During the Nigerian Civil War of the late 1960s, he wrote several pieces about his expirience, and others’ experiences through novels.One of his most well known novels about this era in Nigerian history was titled Sozoboy: A Novel in Rotten English.
Published 1985
- Sozaboy: A Novel in Rotten English
Over the next many years, Wiwa mostly stayed out the public eye, until he started producing a wildly popular Nigerian sitcom, Basi and Co. It aired from 1985 to 1990, and is still considered one of the most watched African shows of all time. If you want to see an episode clip, click here. Shortly after his show ended, was when Wiwa started doing what he is most known for. Wiwa spoke and peacefully acted against the destruction of his homeland.
WHERE:
The area that Wiwa came from, south Nigeria, was home to his people, the Ogoni. As a South Nigerian, during the Civil war he argued to keep Biafra maintained inside the country. The Niger Delta is home to some of the richest deposits of oil in the world, one factor that effected the spark of the civil war.
WHAT:
What Wiwa is by far most known for is his protests against large companies, especially Shell, for drilling for oil in the Niger Delta. He argued that not only did they destroy the land for the next thousand years by drilling, they did not give the Ogoni people any of the share of profits they made from the oil, even though it was directly on their land. He said that Shell was essentially committing an act of genocide against the Ogoni, because they were an agricultural people, so by taking away their land, many starved if they were not already injured or dead from the oil work.
After successfully rallying Ogonis in the thousands to peacefully prostest, Shell started working closely with the military to shut the movement, and its leader, Wiwa, down. The reports of what Shell encouraged and paid Nigerian military to do in the early nineties is, at the very least, disturbing and horrific. To hear more about Shell’s crimes, watch this. Eventually, the government found some crime to convict Wiwa of, even though he never acted violently in his protests, and he was hanged along with eight other Nigerians in 1995 after a widely agreed as totally corrupt trial.
WHY:
You should know about Ken Saro Wiwa and what he stood for because from places where you will be reading this blog post, you will probably haven’t heard about the problems in South Nigeria, or much about Nigeria at all. If you know about what Shell and other large companies did there, we all can help get the word out, and more people can try to help the Nigerians. Because even though Wiwa was killed almost over fifteen years ago, the problems in the Niger Delta have not ended. The local people there are still suffering, and we can help.
If you want to donate or even volunteer with, the Ogoni Charities Inc, a non-profit organization that helps clean the Ogoniland waters of oil and other contaminates from drilling, you can visit their…
Facebook page here.
Or go to their website here.