The death of a writer

Somebody wanted to know the meaning of Saro-Wiwa's death. Simple. It means that nothing has changed

It is a supreme irony that the death of Ken Saro-Wiwa , the Nigerian environmental activist, businessman and writer at the age of 54, should have come in such a grotesque manner: tried and condemned by a tribunal instead of an ordinary court of law, denied the right of appeal, and hanged. Nothing about his origins nor, indeed, the course of most of his life, indicated even remotely that things would come to this terrible pass.

Saro-Wiwa was born in Bori, near Port Harcourt, capital of Rivers State in Nigeria. He was a brilliant student and government scholarships saw him through Government College, Umuahia, and the University of Ibadan - two famous institutions which some other notable Nigerian writers, including Chinua Achebe, had also attended.

He taught briefly at the Universities of Ibadan and Nigeria (at Nsukka) before the outbreak of the Nigerian civil war in 1967. Stridently anti-Biafran (until his death he wrote the name with a lower case 'b'), Saro-Wiwa pitched his camp with the Federal authorities. He was appointed the administrator of the oil port of Bonny, and in 1968 became one of the first cabinet members in the newly created Rivers State, where he alternately held the powerful portfolios of education and information. However, when he left the cabinet of Commander Alfred Dietee-Spiff, the military governor of Rivers State, in 1973, it was in acrimonious circumstances.

Out of government, Saro-Wiwa turned to business, which he ran alongside his real love of writing. He made good on both scores. He could afford to send his son to Eton and had to his credit more than 20 titles in all genres of literature.

There are four novels, a poetry volume, two books of short stories, three titles on general topics, two drama volumes, one on folklore and nine children's books. And this output does not include the extensive pamphleteering on behalf of the Ogoni cause. His Tambari and Tambari In Dukana, both written for children, were published by Longman. All the others are published by his Saros International Publishers. Last year, Longman re-issued his Sazaboy: A Novel In Rotten English, which received an honourable mention at the Noma Award for Publishing in Africa. Only last month the same publishers re-issued A Forest Of Flowers, his first collection of short stories which was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers Prize in 1987.

Saro-Wiwa was also at different times an engaging newspaper columnist for Punch, Vanguard and the Daily Times, all Lagos-based dailies. Whether in journalism or in creative writing, he exposed a nation 'cracking up under the pressures of maladministration, corporate greed, sloth, ignorance and mercenary self-interest, while its people struggle against government neglect and abuse, racketeering, poverty, disease, superstition and ethnic mistrust' to quote the apposite comment on the blurb accompanying A Forest Of Flowers.

Sometime in 1991, Saro-Wiwa decided to abandon 'everything' and devote himself to the Ogoni struggle, which until then he had combined with his other activities. He put his creative writing in abeyance, dutifully returning to their owners all the manuscripts his Saros International was to have published, and relinquished his position as president of the Association of Nigerian Authors which he had held for three years.

Towards the end of 1992 he was struck by tragedy when his son at Eton dropped dead during a game of rugby. Something inside Saro-Wiwa seemed to have died as a result. From then on he lived only for the Ogoni struggle.

Before long he complained that the military authorities had turned a deaf ear to the demands of his people. In the circumstances, he said the only option left was to attract the attention of the international community. In July 1992 he addressed the United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Populations in Geneva and followed this up with a visit to the UN in New York. He bought cine equipment and cameras, and systematically began recording scenes of oil pollution and gas flaring in Ogoniland. Using the platform of Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), which he helped found, he sensitised his people to both the politics and economics of oil.

Greenpeace and other environmental groups soon took up the Ogoni case and the picketing of Shell offices in London became commonplace. (In fact, Shell was chased out of Ogoniland in 1993.) Saro-Wiwa had become an acute embarrassment to oil companies operating in Nigeria and to his country's military rulers.

During his last visit to London in May last year he complained that Shell had put a worldwide surveillance on his movements. He said it was obvious that the

military regime in Nigeria was feeling the heat of the Ogoni struggle. 'I am using even the Koran which says it is right to fight one's oppressors against them', he told me. 'And they don't like it one bit.' A mutual friend, a novelist, asked Saro-Wiwa if it was not possible for him to 'go slow' on 'the struggle'. The man merely smiled and changed the topic.

The last time I saw him was when the UK chapter of the Ogoni movement was launched at the Royal Park Hotel in London. Saro-Wiwa told me he would return to Nigeria the following week, but would be back in good time for the launch of Sozaboy by Longman. He never came back.

Shortly after his return to Nigeria he was arrested and charged with multiple murder although it was established that he was not at the scene of the killings. But Justice Ibrahim Auta, the tribunal chairman, warned: 'If an accused was not directly involved in a crime, he could still be convicted if he encouraged the act'. And the tribunal is empowered to pronounce only capital punishment.

So, the Nigerian state has killed Ken Saro - Wiwa . The man I knew, the one who was my friend for over a decade, believed in combat - the combat of the written and spoken word. If he opposed anything, he went to great lengths to leave nobody in doubt as to where he stood. Perhaps his eternal mistake was that he chose to rail at those who saw themselves in superhuman terms, people who would brook no opposition and who, in the peculiar setting of the Nigerian entity, had invariably coveted the power to decide who got dispatched and who did not.

But he always insisted that the Ogoni would demand their rights peacefully. He showed impatience each time it was alleged that he was planning for the Ogoni to secede. 'I am not a fool', he would declare. 'The Ogoni are only 500,000. Nigeria is about 100 million. Secession is not a viable option and we are not into that.' Somebody wanted to know the meaning of Saro-Wiwa's death. Simple. It means that nothing has changed.

He is survived by his wife, Hauwa, his children, one of whom, Ken, has been the foremost campaigner for his father's freedom, and his father and mother, who are aged 91 and 75 years respectively.

Chuks Iloegbunam

Nigerian journalist and friend of Saro-Wiwa

Kenule Beeson Saro-Wiwa, writer and environmentalist, born October 10, 1941 died November 10, 1995.