Nigeria: Ken Saro-Wiwa – ‘Their Only Crime Was Peacefully Pursuing Human Rights for Ogoni People’

Nigeria: Ken Saro-Wiwa – ‘Their Only Crime Was Peacefully Pursuing Human Rights for Ogoni People’

In marking 25 years since the death of Ken Saro-Wiwa, daughter of the renowned environmental activist, Noo Saro-Wiwa took to Facebook to pay tribute and talk about how her father was treated during and after his passing.

Noo explained that her father was ‘buried in an unmarked grave for almost a decade’ and that their only crime was ‘to peacefully pursue human rights for the Ogoni people and to campaign against oil spills in the oil-rich Niger Delta’. He also lamented what she termed as failure of the Nigerian government to grant her late father an official pardon

Read what she wrote below

“25 years ago today, my father Ken Saro-Wiwa and his eight colleagues were murdered by Nigeria’s military regime after a sham trial. Their only ‘crime’ was to peacefully pursue human rights for the Ogoni people and to campaign against oil spills in the oil-rich Niger Delta.

“Their bodies were buried in an unmarked grave for almost a decade. When our family finally received my father’s remains we had to reassemble his skeleton with our own hands before giving him a dignified burial.

“To this day the Nigerian government has not granted him an official pardon. It speaks volumes about our so-called democracy. No government can call itself civilised or claim any moral authority while it refuses to exonerate these innocent men. Black lives will matter outside of Africa only when they matter in Africa itself. #pardonkensarowiwa #pardontheogoni9”