VARIOUS: KEN WIWA , SON OF NIGERIAN OGONI ACTIVIST KEN SARA WIWA ,EXECUTED IN 1995, TALKS ABOUT BOOM HE HAS WRITTEN ABOUT HIS FATHER

Record ID: 838155

  • Title: VARIOUS: KEN WIWA , SON OF NIGERIAN OGONI ACTIVIST KEN SARA WIWA ,EXECUTED IN 1995, TALKS ABOUT BOOM HE HAS WRITTEN ABOUT HIS FATHER
  • Date: 13th November 2000
  • Summary: (FILE OCTOBER 1995) (UNITED KINGDOM) (REUTERS) SMV, KEN WIWA WALKING DOWN CORRIDOR WITH OTHERS SCU POSTERS READING " HIS CAMPAIGN LIVES ON " AND " NO MORE KILLINGS IN OGONI" PAN UP TO PRESS CONFERENCE WITH KEN WIWA TO PUBLICISE CAMPAIGN
  • Embargoed: 28th November 2000 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: VARIOUS LOCATIONS NIGERIA AND UK,SOUTH AFRICA, NEW ZEALAND
  • City:
  • Country: United Kingdom Nigeria
  • Topics: General,Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVACUBKO4IMQ2NXFCT9AI9K2X75Y
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  • Story Text: Ken Wiwa, the son of Ken Saro-Wiwa, has come to terms with his father's untimely death by writing his biography - "In the Shadow of a Saint" - a frank and moving account of Saro-Wiwa's life as an activist and a father and of Wiwa's relationship with him. Reuters caught up with him to discuss his views and how he is dealing with his father's legacy.
    What's in a name? If the name is Ken Saro-Wiwa - quite a lot.
    Ken Wiwa says "Carrying that name was always a tremendous burden for me in Nigeria but in England it was fine to be Ken Saro-Wiwa because nobody knew who my father was over here. But once he became known outside Nigeria I couldn't walk around being Ken Saro-Wiwa because people would be confused."
    Being Ken Saro-Wiwa Senior in the early 1990s was a struggle.
    As the leading activist for Nigeria's Ogoni people, Saro-Wiwa was in the forefront of the struggle against repression by the country's military regime and against exploitation by oil giant Shell.
    At the time Shell Nigeria was reaping massive profits from oil exploration in the Ogoni heartland - with little or no regard for the welfare of the Ogoni people.
    Their farmlands were being polluted by oil spills and acid rain - or destroyed by these vicious gas flares.
    And - apart from the environmental destruction - the Ogoni people were getting next to nothing out of the deal.
    Ken Saro-Wiwa wanted to focus the world's attention on the crisis - and that put him in direct confrontation with Nigeria's military ruler - Sani Abacha - whose regime was propped up by oil revenues.
    There was only going to be one winner in the struggle - Abacha saw to it that Saro-Wiwa and eight other Ogoni activists were put on trial - ostensibly for the murder of four other Ogoni leaders - including a brother-in-law of Saro-Wiwa.
    Abacha also saw to it that the activists were found guilty and sentenced to death.
    The trial catapulted the Ogoni struggle and the name Ken Saro-Wiwa into international headlines - prompting a firestorm of condemnation of Nigeria and of Shell from around the world.
    The military regime's decision to execute Saro-Wiwa and his comrades on November 10, 1995 during a meeting of Commonwealth Heads of State shocked the world - and Nigeria was suspended from the Commonwealth and hit with a package of stinging sanctions.
    It fell on Saro-Wiwa's son Ken Wiwa to champion his father's lost cause - and bring it to the world's attention.
    Although Saro-Wiwa was murdered by the military regime - some have argued that his death was not in vain.
    The international outcry was one of the factors that pushed Nigeria to embrace democracy - and Shell has since been ordered to pay 40 million dollars to one Ogoni community as compensation for an oil spill in the 1970s.
    It took Wiwa three years to come to terms with the death of his father, and the confusing mix of anger and admiration he still felt towards him.
    Part of this coming to terms was writing this book - In the Shadow of a Saint - a frank and moving account of Saro-Wiwa's life as an activist and a father and of Wiwa's relationship with him.
    Ken Wiwa says "The only painful thing is that he's not around to tell him how much I understand and how much I love him and how much I'm proud of him and that I totally forgive him for everything and I understand where he was coming from. I have a very wonderful relationship with him now. There's no sense of...I sometimes look back at some of the things I have written in the book ...of course I was just trying to describe my journey through to this point. Yes - I mean - it was a very tense, difficult relationship but all fathers and sons go through that to a certain point - so I wasn't any different."
    In trying to understand his life as the son of a famous martyr - Wiwa sought out the help of someone who really understood what he was going through - Khose Nasse Biko the son of murdered South African activist Steve Biko.
    Ken says "Of course he'd lived my dilemma for most of his life - he was only six when Steve Biko died - so he had already encountered those dilemmas and dealt with them so in a sense I was learning from him. He told me how he was trapped in his history and that being the son of a martyr is a curse but it's also a blessing and you have to learn to appreciate the blessing and handle the curse and it's just part of the territory."
    Through rediscovering his relationship with his late father - Wiwa has also stumbled across another important part of his past.
    He says "I was always conscious of my identity - my African heritage - but in a sense I rejected it because that was what my father wanted - he wanted an African son, an English educated African son. In rejecting those roots in my teens I rejected my African identity but all I was actually doing was rebelling against my father. Now I don't feel the need to rebel against him I'm beginning to reclaim those roots and that part of myself."
    Wiwa - who has lived all his life in Britain - is unlikely to take up his father's crusade for Ogoni rights anytime soon.
    But feeling his Ogoni roots now more than ever - he does have some ideas for moving the debate forward.
    He says "I think what needs to happen is for Ogoni to come together and Shell to come together and to have full disclosure without fear of retaliation and just say - look this is what we did, we're sorry - ask for forgiveness and lets move on."
    While Nigeria has changed significantly in the last 5 years - the need for a brave and committed champion of Ogoni rights might arise again.
    Whether Ken Wiwa will be that man depends on his ongoing struggle to come to terms with his father and the past he created.
    --ENDS--
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