By Banji Ojewale
We are prepared to fight to
the last cup of blood…
The Ogoni
people are determined: everyman, woman and child will die before Nigerians will
steal their oil anymore
– Ken Saro-Wiwa (1941-1945)
20 years ago on November10,1995, more than two years
after he made this grim prediction, Ken Saro-Wiwa, renowned writer, TV
producer, newspaper columnist and irrepressible minority and environment rights
campaigner did indeed die. But not a natural death. He was executed along with
eight others by a Nigerian state in the grip of military dictator Sani Abacha
who felt he had run out of patience with the man that pummeled Nigeria
Ken battled the reckless degradation of Ogoni as no one else
did. For years before he was arrested and subjected to a kangaroo trial that
ended with his execution, Saro-Wiwa stood on the tripod of intellectual
discourse, writing and peaceful protests to lash out at the conspiracy of
government and the oil companies that despoiled his people. He argued that this
infernal bond between an “irresponsible” government and “indifferent” oil
companies resulting in death-dealing blows on his kinsmen was unacceptable. Big
money came from the frenetic oil exploration (exploitation). But Ogoni had
nothing to show for being the bird that produced the golden eggs. Instead Ogoni
had pain. Saro-Wiwa lamented that these arose from the fact that in a so-called
federal set up the rights of the minority were appropriated by the state and
added to the rights of the majority ethnic groups.
So quite early in his life, Saro-Wiwa decided to fight the
system that encouraged this arrangement. He studied the writings of the great
Chief Obafemi Awolowo, for whom he had a god-like reverence. Awo’s philosophy
on how to handle the minority question-detailed in three of the major books he
wrote between the 50s and 60s-warned against a contraption justifying or
allowing for the economic and political suppression of the small groups by the
ethnic ones. The system must accommodate the minorities as equal partners
enjoying the same rights as the majors; they must have autonomy and be allowed
control of their resources and their environment in the same way the majority
was allowed. He predicted calamitous outcome if the minorities were not so
permitted to be. The collapse of Yugoslavia
and USSR
