ABSTRACT
On 10 November 1995, Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other prisoners-all residents of oil-rich, and oil-devastated Ogoniland in Rivers State in the southeast of Nigeria-were awakened at dawn, shackled at their ankles, and transported from Bori military camp where they had been held during their murder trial, to Port Harcourt Central Prison. Saro-Wiwa, an internationally recognized novelist, environmental activist and leader of the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP) was granted his last rites by a sobbing priest, and surrendered his remaining property including his trademark pipe. In a moment of darkest farce, the executioners had presented themselves at the prison only to be turned away because their papers were not in order. Dressed in a loose gown and a black headcloth, Saro-Wiwa was, after this interregnum, led to the gallows. The pit into which Saro-Wiwa fell was shallow and the fall failed to break his neck. It took him twenty minutes to die. A videotape of the hanging was sent by courier to General Abacha, head of the Nigerian military junta, as proof of Saro-Wiwa’s death. Seven others, who were also found guilty of the murder of four prominent Ogoni leaders by a kangaroo court hastily convened by the military government, suffered a similar fate. The executioners were said to have poured acid on the corpses to speed decomposition and to discourage Ogoni activists from taking possession of the bodies. Within hours of the hanging, 4,000 troops were
deployed throughout Ogoniland-a Lilliputian area of 400 sq. miles containing half a million people and almost one hundred oil wells. Nigeria’s Kuwait was in effect under military occupation. Special military forces beat any person caught mourning MOSOP’s deceased leadership in public and embarked upon a systematic attempt to erase any trace of Saro-Wiwa’s influence.
