Reviews
Absurd Tales of oil, greed and death
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A Month and A Day & Letters Price: £9.99 Place an order for this book! ISBN: 978-0-9547023-5-9 Extent: 240 pages |
Reviewed in 'THES (UK Times Higher Education Supplement)' 23 December 05, by Mandy Garner
On November 10, 1995, I was sitting in my office at the writers' organisation International PEN when the phone rang. It was a friend with a report from a "reliable source" close to the prison in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, that the official executioner had been seen entering the premises. Despite months of international action and pleading, it seemed that the Nigerian Government was going ahead with its plan, following a farcical trial by a military tribunal, to execute the writer Ken Saro-Wiwa and his eight fellow Ogonis on trumped-up charges of inciting murder. All through the day, we waited for confirmation of the execution and at last it came. In defiance of world opinion and with no right of appeal, the nine men had been hanged. For Saro-Wiwa, it had reportedly taken more than one attempt.
And yet, as Wole Soyinka says in his foreword to this book, there had been a terrible inevitability about the outcome, despite official assurances that we should trust in international diplomacy. The Abacha regime in Nigeria was reliant on an oil industry whose injustice had been highlighted by the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People and its spokesman, Saro-Wiwa; an injustice that saw Nigeria's oil wealth siphoned away from the areas where it was drilled -- which were left to deal with the environmental fallout -- and into the pockets of Nigeria's military and corporate elite.
Ten years later, although Nigeria has faded from the world headlines, this book shows that Saro-Wiwa's legacy is still important. His diary previously published, tells of his detention for a month and a day in 1993, but there is additional material from the later detention that resulted in his death.
Several times, Saro-Wiwa says that he would like to have been an academic, and this book is aimed partly at students on African studies courses.
For a man who crammed so much into his life -- he was a businessman, politician (a commissioner of education, no less), a populist national leader and a prolific writer/journalist -- it seems almost unsurprising that he managed to direct the campaign for his release while in prison.
In the diary, there are many scenes that highlight the absurdity of military regimes, such as when Saro-Wiwa goes to a restaurant with a guard. "I thought you were in detention?" says a fellow diner. "So I am," says Saro-Wiwa, pointing out his guard. The man asks him why he is detention. "Election offences," says Saro-Wiwa. But the election has been nullified, the man responds.
The book, though, is more than the tale of Saro-Wiwa's detention. It is an outline of his political ideology, a potted history of Nigeria and especially the Ogoni, whose right to self determination Saro-Wiwa championed, and a behind-the-scenes look at politics in Nigeria.
The new material highlights the prescience of some of the comments made by Saro-Wiwa while in detention in 1993 and also shows how he managed to ignite international attention for his cause.
Here too the tangled relationship between Saro-Wiwa and his son Ken Wiwa, who lives in the shadow of a daunting father and who, in campaigning for his father's release and propagating his legacy in books such as this, has shown that he is no mean operator himself.
Mandy Garner, features editor
The Times Higher Higher Education Supplement
African Business: June 2006
A Month and A Day & Letters includes an edited version of ‘A Detention Diary’ – Saro-Wiwa’s own record of his arrest in July1993, and the story of the Movement for Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) and the struggle against the multinational Shell and the Nigerian Military.
Saro-Wiwa’s criticisms and questioning of a corrupt regime eventually led to his execution with eight others on 10 November 1995.
Ken Saro-Wiwa was sentenced to death with other Ogonis after a trial by a ‘kangaroo’ court, during which he was allowed no legal representation and denied the opportunity to deliver his final statement (included in this book) to the military-appointed tribunal.
Sanctioned by the General Sani Abacha dictatorship, the sentence was carried out in the face of international condemnation. This book contains letters smuggled to and from Ken during his final days of detention in1995. Among these letters are words of encouragement (and later condolences to his family) from world leaders, writers and friends, including Nelson Mandela, Nadine Gordimer, Ethel Kennedy, Gordon and Anita Roddick.
But there are also letters from ordinary people from all over the world, moved by his plight and the injustice of his detention, who wrote to express their support for him and his cause while he was in prison.
These letters have not been seen before and speak volumes for a man moved by a quest for justice for his Ogoni people through his writings and non-violent means of protest through MOSOP.
This book focuses on the Ogoni struggle and highlights his ideology, his cause, his ultimate sacrifice and the injustice of his death. The story of Ken Saro-Wiwa is a story that illustrates the consequences and dangers of living in a global economy powered by fossil fuel. Saro-Wiwa gave his life for the Ogoni people, and all oppressed peoples of the world but ultimately for a world that is sustainable , just and humane.
If you want to know why Ken Saro-Wiwa was hanged, read this book.
New Internationalist: April 2006
A decade has passed since Ken Saro-Wiwa was judicially murdered on trumped-up charges by the military dictatorship of the Nigerian ruler Sani Abacha. He was hanged, together with eight other campaigners, for defending the rights of the Ogoni people, despite worldwide condemnation and a concerted campaign led by his fellow writers and prominent world figures.
To mark the anniversary of this barbaric act and to celebrate the life of a remarkable man, the estimable Ayebia Clarke Publishing house has brought out a new edition of the ‘Detention Diary’ Saro-Wiwa wrote in July 1993. Also included in this volume are a series of clandestine letters to friends, written during Saro-Wiwa’s imprisonment, his final statement to the military tribunal that condemned him (which he was not allowed to read out) and, movingly, two letters written by his son Ken Wiwa to his late father.
In his writing and his activism, Ken Saro-Wiwa was steadfast in his defence of the oppressed and dispossessed Ogoni people. He is scathing in his contempt for the brutal and corrupt dictatorship and the complicity of the oil transnational Shell, whose pursuit of profit has left Ogoni lands polluted and despoiled.
This excellent book outlines for the general reader the struggle of the Ogonis against global corporate power allied to military tyranny. It also gives us a glimpse into the daily life of a man whose commitment to honesty and justice so irked Nigeria’s despots that they were obliged to murder him.
Four Star rating ****
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