Silence Would Be Treason

Silence Would Be Treason are the last writings of Ken Saro-Wiwa from prison in Nigeria to an Irish nun in the run up to his execution in November 1995. Smuggled out of prison in bread baskets, they are the final testament of a man who gave everything he had in the struggle for social and ecological justice.

As Ken Saro-Wiwa continues to inspire people and movements across decades and continents, these letters form part of our living history, and give us an immediate link with the man behind the hero.

For years, Shell Oil with the backing of the Nigerian government drilled for oil in the mangrove swamps of the Niger Delta. The pollution that followed destroyed farms and rivers, and contaminated the fishing and drinking water of the Ogoni people. Ken Saro-Wiwa spearheaded the resistance to this destruction, and became an icon for social justice movements everywhere.

Nigerian environmental activist, Nnimmo Bassey describes these last letters as: ‘invaluable fragments of a living conversation’. And there is this sense of immediacy – they are a direct account of the events which led to the execution of the Ogoni 9. These letters and poems of Ken Saro-Wiwa show him uncomfortable at becoming a disembodied, iconic figure. He plays down the martyred saviour narrative in favour of a more fluid sense of self as ‘voice’. A globally resonant voice, which still has relevance today.

Silence Would Be Treason is voiced by Ben Arogundade and presented by Noo Saro-Wiwa.

Produced by Bairbre Flood.

‘His words are an inspiration to anyone fighting against tyranny, and a reminder to oppressors the world over that the human spirit can never be broken.’ – Noo Saro-Wiwa

With thanks to the Maynooth Library Ken Saro-Wiwa Archive – view it: here – Silence Would Be Treason is published by Daraja Press, ed. Ide Corley, Helen Fallon, and Laurence Cox is available here, and piece in openDemocracy here by Biodun Jefiyo.

Transcript of Silence Would Be Treason:

BILLBOARD  [59”]

01:00 NOO

Hello, my name is Noo; daughter of Ken Saro-Wiwa an this is the BBC World Service.

Some of you will know his name. Some of you might not.

If you do, then you will know him for his actions as a poet and a protester, a man killed for his beliefs. 

If you don’t know him, then listen closely. Listen to his words: The words of my father. Secret words: Smuggled from his prison cell – and here, now, at last, shared with the world.

01:30   BEN

‘Keep out of prison,’ he wrote,

 ‘Don’t get arrested anymore.’

  But while the land is ravaged

And our pure air poisoned

When streams choke with pollution

Silence would be treason.

01:50  MUSIC

01:55 NOO

One of the 27 poems and two years of letters my father wrote to an Irish nun in the run up to his execution in November 1995. 

Smuggled out of the military detention centre in bread baskets, they are the last testament of a man who gave everything he had in a struggle for justice.

For years, Shell Oil with the backing of the Nigerian government drilled for oil in the mangrove swamps of the Niger Delta. The pollution that followed destroyed farms and rivers, and contaminated the fishing and drinking water of the Ogoni people.

A UN Environment Assessment Report in 2011 stated that, ‘‘Control and maintenance of oilfield infrastructure in Ogoniland has been and remains inadequate: the Shell Petroleum Development Company’s own procedures have not been applied, creating public health and safety issues.’ And they described the effect on the mangrove swamps as being ‘disasterous’.

We asked Shell for a response to the report and what followed – and they sent us the following statement which we have voiced ourselves:

“We are committed to the implementation of the UNEP report and have acted on all recommendations directed to us in it – and completed most of them. We also actively support the clean-up process coordinated by the Nigerian government, which needs multi-stakeholder efforts. By the end of next year, SPDC will have contributed $900 million to the federal government’s clean-up agency, HYPREP.

While we have not operated in Ogoniland since 1993, we also continue to fund and support community programmes there.”

NOO

I see my father, Ken Saro Wiwa, as a thread of inspiration to environmentalists across decades and continents.

Nigerian environmental activist, Nnimmo Bassey describes these last letters as: ‘invaluable fragments of a living conversation’. 

And there is this sense of immediacy – they are a  living history of these events.

They show the process of building a movement as a chaotic – not a linear process. And gives us insights into how MOSOP (Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People) organised itself on the ground.

And these last writings of my father show him uncomfortable at becoming a disembodied, iconic figure. 

He plays down the idea of being a martyr or a saviour and instead saw himself as a ‘voice’of others.  A globally resonant voice, which still has relevance today. 

03:55  BEN

Prison Song

Bedbugs, fleas and insects

The howl of deranged suspects

The dark night bisect

Rudely breaking my nightmare

And now widely awake

I’m reminded of this crude place

Shared with unusual inmates.

04:10  MUSIC

04:15 NOO

In May 1994, four Ogoni chiefs and members of The Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), were murdered following a division within MOSOP over whether the organisation should co-operate with the military government. 

The government accused my father and some of his colleagues for inciting those murders, despite the fact that one of the victims was my mother’s brother-in-law.

An Amnesty International report at the time stated: ‘Scores of MOSOP supporters, many of them young men, were detained without charge for months, beaten severely, locked up 24 hours a day in overcrowded and insanitary cells, denied medical treatment or any access to lawyers or families.’

This first letter from my father is undated, most likely written in July 1994.

05:05  BEN

Dear Sr. Majella,

Greetings in God’s name. Well, you know the whole story. They are getting closer to me—Shell and the Nigerian establishment that is. I’m not particularly protected, although I have great faith in God, in the justness of my cause & in the belief in eventual VICTORY. But the pain which we all have to endure! Would to God it had been lighter!

My current detention is sheer torture. I’m a private prisoner of the Lt-Col Komo and his Internal Security Task Force. This is a lawless situa­tion. I’m not being held under Decree 2 for all I know, and if I were being held under the Criminal Code over the homicide of the 4 Ogoni men, I should be in the hands of the Police.

 Now here I am, in a private house, denied access to lawyer, doctor, family, other visitors and not allowed to have the special diet which I have been on. I am not allowed to read newspapers, listen to radio or read books. It’s mental torture. The living condition is okay—there is electricity & air condition­ing, but I’m alone with two armed guards, 24 hours a day. I’ve asked Bishop Makozi to intervene with the Governor so I’m properly fed & taken to hospital. No dice. You should see me. I’ve lost weight! 

For the first 10 days here, I was on bread, water & bananas alone. But I’m in good spirit, undaunted, as convinced of my cause as ever. My real worry is the devastation of Ogoni villages, the destabilization of the area & the harassment & killing of the people. With MOSOP Steering Committee members on the run or under arrest, the Ogoni are not protected at all. And the international scene is quiet, taken up with Abiola. Only Divine intervention can help the Ogoni.

I’m not worried for myself. When I undertook to confront Shell & the Nigerian establishment, I signed my death warrant, so to speak. 

At 52, I think I’ve served my time and, come to face it, I’ve lived a charmed life. A few more books, maybe, & the opportunity to assist others would have been welcome. But it’s okay. Of course, I & MOSOP had nothing to do with the death of the 4 gentlemen. We are struggling for justice, not for power and, in any case, they were of little consequence in a highly mobilized and conscious Ogoni population. 

They were no threat in any way at all. Komo has just succeeded in masking the government’s role in the unfortunate & brutal deaths. 

—

Well, Sr., I hope you do get this letter. I hope I’ll get another opportunity to write you. 

I’m spending my time writing short stories—I lock my door & do not allow my jailers to see me at it.

If we meet again, we’ll smile. Till then, it’s good luck & God bless you

07:05   NOO

The nun my father was writing to – Sr Majella McCarron had been teaching in Nigeria for thirty years. 

In the early nineties she was tasked by a new organisation called The Africa Europe Faith and Justice Network with researching western companies which they believed were having a detrimental effect on Nigeria. 

07:20 MAJELLA

So I remember feeling I know nothing about this, but from what I read this population knows everything about it. So if I could link in with them, then I could do my job. Because they already knew what it was all about. 

So that’s how I went to them first.

09:05 NOO

A mutual colleague in the University introduced Majella to my father in his Lagos office.

09:10 MAJELLA

And then I went down a few other times and I think he would quiz me a lot.

And I’ve seen references as to why we got on so well, but it’s possible he recognised I belonged to a colonial structure as well- being Northern Irish – so it may have been that he wanted to hear what I thought of this and that.  

But the questions were so interesting I’d go home and write an answer, and I started handing in my notes to him. And then one day I went down and I found his typist typing up my notes. 

And that’s the way the conversation started.

Then they began taking my notes over to him in prison, the 500 kms, and I began to get answers back.

He wrote with absolute ease. He’d see all that as part of the campaign. Every one of those letters had a business in it.

11:00 NOO

If you’re wondering how the letters managed to get in and out of a military detention centre – Ledum Mitee, the vice-president of MOSOP, arrested alongside my father, explained how they came up with a plan.

He said that himself and Ken refused to eat the food provided, and eventually the families were allowed deliver meals to the guards which were then passed on. ‘This is how we smuggled writings in and out.’ Ledum said.

My father mentions Professor Ake and Wole Soyinka several times in these letters. Claude Ake was a professor of political economy at Port Harcourt University, and an outspoken critic of the oil companies and the Nigerian government. Wole Soyinka won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1986, and had to flee Nigeria for some years because of threats from President Abacha’s military government. 

12:00 BEN

September 16th, 1994

I’m still here (118 days today) and there’s no sign that I’ll be out soon. No matter. I’m writing and reading a lot and making good use of the time. One of my poems was published in the Independent of London on 8th September. And Professor Ake & Wole Soyinka have done excellent essays on Ogoni. That by Wole Soyinka appeared in the New York Times and probably sent the Nigerian Ambassador to the U.S to Ogoni. He came here to see me; unfortunately, we could not really discuss meaningfully because the military upset me by remaining with us. I also wore a MOSOP singlet to ensure that they did not get a photo opportunity! They had a video camera along & the Sunray photographer smuggled himself into the team. Later, the Sunray films were confiscated, the editors of the newspaper manhandled, and the MOSOP singlet seized from me! But I had made the point.

The published essays by Ake, Soyinka & myself have led to an upsurge of confidence in Ogoni. I now receive a stream of encouraging letters from the activists, including those of them who are underground. The sense I have is that they will “fight” to the end. 

—

The government keeps saying we are to be charged to court “soon”. But they’ve been saying that for about 2 months. I doubt that their investigations led to much, but they are probably looking for the judges who will agree to do their bidding.

___

All in all, I’m in high spirits and my time is well used, the physical conditions have been quite good. Had my computer not been confiscated, I should have written a lot more than the 5 or 6 books I’ve now either finished or completed anew. And somehow, I remain immensely confident that the Ogoni cause will be won.

I hope that you meet your family in good health and that you are resting as you should.

Please keep in touch.

Sincerely,

Ken.

14:00 NOO

I was at boarding school in Sussex, England when he was arrested. My mother told us but shielded us from the details. It was the second time my father was arrested. The first detention lasted just over one month, so I was confident that he would again be released this time around. I thought the government was doing its usual sabre-rattling. 

As a child, my siblings and I had to spend summer holidays in Nigeria. At the time I didn’t want to, but my parents’ insistence maintaining our connection with Nigeria, Ogoni, and family is something I appreciate hugely now.

My father was a cerebral and creative man. His books – like the anti-war ‘Sozaboy’, or ‘On A Darkling Plain’ reflected his preference for non-violent methods. 

He was honest and confrontational, focused and uncompromising when it came to social justice. 

An artist more than a politician.

These qualities did not fit in a military dictatorship, post-colonial Nigeria, where people either ruled with violence, or submitted to hardline authoritarianism.  

15:00 BEN

Morning song

This morning is sheer poetry

as from my detention cell

my heart sings with the red

freshness of hibiscus flowers

the vivid colour of the ixoras

shooting out of the green abundance

of a heart which resists surrender

to a garden of rank weed and mush.

15:30 NOO

My father never saw himself as a hero figure. He  was on a mission to help the Ogoni people. As one of the few people in our ethnic group to receive a first-class education, he believed it was his duty to help everyone else rise up too. This was evident in his role as education commissioner in the 1960s. 

My father had no interest in personality cults. The movement was about Ogoni as a whole. Collective action. But he was also aware that he was a rallying figure, an icon, and so he used that position to bring awareness of the Ogoni environmental problems to an international audience.

16:30 MAJELLA

I think he started his campaign in 1990. He had decided to give all he had and all he was to that campaign.

He had taken his Ogoni Bill of Rights to the military dictator of the time. And came back and waited for some response to it. And there was none, so he decided to strengthen his international links. He began to go to the United Nations quite a lot. And another group – in 1991 a Dutch philanthropist started a group called UNPO (Unrepresented Peoples and Organisations). It reflects the break through colonialism of the original populations that were there. The colonial blanket was very distressing and very disturbing.

It’s a surviving model of this attempt to break through the colonial blanket and to get what the big groups have got.

That was one of the feats of Saro-Wiwa. I remember before my eyes I saw him creating a new identity for several little areas. They wouldn’t look on themselves necessarily as Ogoni.

That was my first time going to Ogoni…While I was there Owens Wiwa came in in floods of tears, a village had just been destroyed during the night.

They had a special military unit to subdue the people down there, with almost a sadistic colonel in charge of it – he was merciless. And to this moment there’s no account of how many have died. There was no Red Cross, there was nothing to help the people at all.

18:50 NOO

The special military unit Majella mentions was called the Rivers State Internal Security Task Force.

Following the murders of the Ogoni chiefs in 1994, this Task Force embarked on a series of punitive raids on Ogoni villages. There were reports of indiscriminate shooting, floggings, rapes, looting, and extortion, arbitrary arrests and detention, and extrajudicial executions. 

A team from Human Rights Watch gathered harrowing eye-witness accounts of the human rights violations throughout the summer of 1994, saying raids by the Task Force were an almost nightly occurrence. 

Even my grandmother – who was 74 years old at the time – was beaten by the soldiers.

19:20 BEN

Ogoni, Ogoni!

Ogoni is the land

The people, Ogoni

The agony of trees dying

In ancestral farmlands

Streams polluted weeping

Filth into murky rivers

It is the poisoned air

Coursing the luckless lungs

Of dying children

Ogoni is the dream

Breaking the looping chain

Around the drooping neck of a shell-shocked land.

19:40 NOO

In November 1994 the federal government appointed a special three-man tribunal to try my father and the other Ogoni activists. President Abacha gave the tribunal the power to impose the death penalty.  Their decisions could not be appealed or challenged in the ordinary courts.

An independent observer from the UK, QC Micheal Birbaum who attended the trial, was highly critical of the tribunal, stating it was ‘in breach of fundamental rights’, and ‘not independent of the government.’ 

The tribunal met in Port Harcourt. Outside the courtroom, the defendants’ family, friends, and legal council claimed they were regularly harassed and physically abused. Members of the Ogonis’ defence team were often prevented from meeting with their clients. 

On occasion, the lawyers were even barred from attending the trial. Soldiers physically assaulted members of the legal team, and the wife of one of the Ogoni 9, Dr. Kiobel, was stripped naked and assaulted when she tried to deliver food to her husband in jail.  (Could cut this or add attribution)

20:40 BEN

October 1st, 1994

Keeping MOSOP operational has been quite a problem. With all the Steering Committee members in jail or declared wanted by the police, we have been in trouble. People like my brother who was helping have them­selves become a liability. Those who were in jobs have had their salaries stopped. They, too, have become my responsibility. And keeping things moving in present-day Nigeria has become very expensive—and one is liv­ing on savings—earning nothing new for now. I did mention in my last letter that the Bodyshop had asked for our budget. If they can chip in something, it will help a great deal.

You probably know that one of my aims has been to take the Ogoni people on a journey. Even what is happening now is, and please don’t think me sadistic, helpful. For one, they are able to see me battling from prison— from the very jaws of the lion. A number of them have stuck it out in Ogoni and are still able to work in cells. And there are those who went off to Lagos and have done marvellous work with the Press. The activists write me, and from them, I have a sense that the Ogoni people are holding out bravely. They are not fighting—because I did not even prepare them for physical combat—but they are holding out psychologically. And that, in spite of massive government propaganda…

However, we have won the propaganda war.

___

You will have known that the strike in Lagos was called off after 2 months. It was a great effort, but the British Govt. helped with it. The oil companies too. These organizations find it easier to exploit Nigeria through the military dictatorships. Predictably, Abacha has gone on a spree, trying to prove that he can out Amin Idi Amin. But I expect that he will fail, ultimately.

Yes, I do have a radio. Two have been seized from me, but I’ve got a third. If they seize that, I’ll get another. It’s the only way I can keep up with events. 

__

Getting all these things in has meant paying money out to my guards—quite a sum of money, Nigeria being Nigeria. But that’s okay. I can put it down to “business expense”. Freedom can be quite expensive or cheap depending on how you look at it. To those who have freedom, it’s cheap; those of us who lack it, pay a lot to get just a bit.

(perhaps just cut line that was here)

23:55 MUSIC

23:55 NOO

Stay with me Noo Saro-Wiwa as we move forward to the trial of my father – on trial for his life and the lives of others. That’s here on the BBC World Service.

24:00 BILLBOARD [29”] – NOO

You’re listening to ‘Silence Would Be Treason,’ the last letters and poems of Ken Saro-Wiwa. Here on the BBC.

In just a moment we hear more as the trial builds and protests around the world go unheard…

{extract here}

Stay with us as we continue our story just two minutes away, after the latest news.

PART TWO

24:30 NOO

This is Noo Saro-Wiwa on the BBC World Service.

I would like you to hear a poem by my father, Ken Saro-Wiwa, in full…

It was written in military detention. 

He has now been held for 12 months…

24:40 BEN

I lie alone at night

And think all of one year’s gone

Since I held you in my arms

In the bed we know so well.

I lie alone at night

And see the callous bandits

Break into our hallowed bedroom

Cruelly knife our togetherness.

I lie alone at night

And think of you lying lonely

Dreaming of my return

To the home we love so well

I lie alone at night

And think of the thick boots

Which stalk the halls of tyranny

And crush us underfoot.

I lie alone at night

And wonder why you wait

And endure the gripping pain

Which is my lot to bear.

I lie alone at night

And think of the stranger moon

The stars beyond my gaze

Your beauty like moons and stars

I lie alone at night

And pray the day will come

To mend your broken heart

And steel my breaking soul.

I lie alone at night

And dream a great new dawn

Without boots and knives

Broken hearts, breaking souls

Empty dreams and lonely beds

Stranger moons and searing pain

When you and I and all of us

Can hold hands and sing our love

Into a night captured by peace.

26:00 NOO

One of the poems my father managed to write while in military detention. 

Did I mention that at this stage he’d been in military detention for over a year?

There was now just a few weeks to go before his execution.

26:10 MUSIC

NOO:  Sr Majella McCarron, the Catholic Nun who received the smuggled letters say as well as the deeply personal nature of his poems there was a growing awareness of the link between the political and environmental campaigns:

26:15 MAJELLA

Industrialists don’t even see the people that are there. People aren’t even seen – it’s just a landscape and dots – there’s gold there, there’s silver there, there’s oil there. Nothing else matters. And evidently nothing much matters to the government who sells out those landscapes.

Suddenly you realise they don’t even see villages, and they don’t see farms, and they don’t see people. And that is internationally true.

It would be Ogoni who taught me that.

It’s not that easy to get to where the oil spills are, but I did see a couple that were close to one village, and it settles like a tarmac tennis court. It’s just solid. And it can be four feet or six feet down. So cleaning up that is almost an impossibility.

28:15 BEN

January 15th, 1995

Dear Sr. M,

Thanks a lot for your diary from 6th Dec to 10th January. It was, as usual, a treat, a mine of information. Somehow, I never got the attach­ments. I thought I’d get the Guardian article, the Wole Soyinka piece and anything else of importance but I was not so lucky.

I’m really happy that you are finding so much help for the Ogoni people. Somehow, it’s exhilarating to find a specific assignment for oneself— something that can last a lifetime, which is different to what everyone else does or can do, and whose success or failure can touch a large number of people. I don’t know if I make myself clear. It’s one thing campaigning for the environment, it’s another campaigning for the environment rights of the Ogoni people. This is what gives me the kicks.

Specificity. And it might have been better for me if I were not Ogoni. I should feel like a missionary. Now I think I’m doing what I ought to do as the son of my father. A duty. But I’m happy that I got round to it in the end.

Sorry about the dearth of news from this end. The newspapers are all under tremendous pressure and radio & television being govt. controlled are useless to us. There’s not much happening anyway. Just the old stone-age dictatorship strutting about the stage like a blasted peacock in dark goggles. Such a walking insult to the Nigerian! I feel so ashamed to be Nigerian.

Ogoni Day was a success here at home in spite of the blandishments of the military. The Federation of Ogoni Women’s Association played a very impressive role. 15 of them ended up in detention in the military camp at Kpor. There were processions and dances in individual villages as I had ordered. 

The resilience of Ogoni women is admirable. My mother continues to host, each week, meetings of Ogoni women from fourteen surrounding villages. I’ve seen her twice since I got to Bori Camp here. She lost one of her two sisters a month ago or so. But she’s bearing up well. My father had a surgical operation recently. But I’m told he’s now okay. There’s a video of Ogoni Day & we’ll be sending it on once it has been edited. I sent a speech which has been published locally in part. It was read to applause at one of the centres.

Tomorrow, we go to the Tribunal. I know it’s a kangaroo court and I know they’ll be shutting me away for a time if not forever. But I’m not worried about that. I believe that it will give point to my cause and give it the world-wide publicity which we so badly need. Troops have been sent to Ogoni to stop the people from turning up in large numbers at the trial which is to be held in Government House. Government House! That is like holding the trial in the bedroom of the hangman. 

—

Your diary did not say a word of my daughters. I hope they remain close to you. I miss them a lot. 

Hauwa was also here throughout December with young Kwame (who looks so very much like me). I was able to hold him in my arms twice or thrice. I was not important to him, though. I’ll write again as the trial progresses. I’ll be having quite some fun in court. 

You have my love & admiration.

Ken.

31:15 MUSIC

31:20 BEN

Detention haircut

I had a haircut today

After a long delay

My prison hair had grown so long

I thought it was full of lice

It looked thoroughly unkempt

A barber my jailers refused

So I did it just my way.

And oh, when I was done

You’d think I’d been visited

By a carpenter rude and crude

Or that an army of mice

Had raided my lovely head.

I could not stand the mirror

It told a tale of horror

But what I most feared

Was my aged mum would dream

I’d had this grisly haircut

As once before she had

And came upbraiding me

‘Cause I looked like a convict

A disgrace to her proud womb.

32:20 MUSIC

32:25 NOO

It did seem that all the media and international attention would influence events and save the Ogoni 9.

I never imagined the Nigerian government would fly in the face of such pressure.

Looking back, I was naïve in believing so. 

32:35 BEN

March 21st, 1995

Dear Sr. M,

Seems like ages ago since I last heard from you. I have seen your work & your pictures in the Irish Times though and I think you yourself might be surprised how far these Ogoni bells are ringing now, and how you have become the bellman? 

I thank God for your presence among us. Ledum keeps asking if you’ll be able to return to Nigeria. And I say “yes” because I’m certain that the present regime will fall and it will also be because people like you did so much to alert the world to the danger it has been to the ordinary people of Nigeria.

I have never really felt I was in danger. The sure knowledge of my innocence gave me that feeling. I thought that I’d remain in captivity until God should have used that fact to make the Ogoni cause better known and pave the way for solving some of the many problems which confront the Ogoni people and similar groups in Nigeria, if not the African continent. Big thought. Big assignment. But I have not wavered in my belief. Now, seeing how things are going, I’m even stronger in my belief and in my faith in the ultimate success of my dreams.

It would appear that the British and the Americans are at last waking up to the danger posed by Abacha and his men. 

We have to be thankful that Wole Soyinka and his friends went abroad to alert the rest of the world. And that people like you are also out there to bear tes­timony independently. Ogoni bells. 

I’m in good shape. A touch of the flu now and again but otherwise, nothing serious on the health side which is a good thing. The “trial” is on, although no one is in doubt that the judge­ment has been written. What will ruin their plan is the fall of the Abacha regime, although one has to be careful then what Shell does next.

—

I find the proceedings of the Tribunal boring or farcical or tedious. Often, I read newspapers. Sometimes I write letters — I actually was caught by Mr Mitee writing to Hauwa. A love letter when you are in a Tribunal facing a death sentence? It seemed incredible. He has been teasing me no end. Yet I do feel contempt for the Tribunal and there’s no better way to express it than what I’ve done. I’d rather not have appeared before it. That was my gut feeling from the beginning, but it was felt that the lives of younger people were at stake and that we should give them a fighting chance.

__

And so the farce goes on. I’m trying to perfect some of the manuscripts I’ve completed during my incarceration. The pity is my computer has been seized and my work is therefore stymied. However, I hope to complete the diary of my first detention and to send it off to the U.K. in the hope that I might find a publisher. Also a collection of short stories A Kind of Festival & Other Stories which I believe to be the best of the three collections I’ve done so far. 

—

I expect I’ve done a run-down of the situation as it is. Oh by the way, I understand Bodyshop have given us fifteen thousand pounds for our defence. A group of Nigerians in Australian have also sent a token sum. 

__

I hope that your health is holding out and that we’ll be able to see you again in due course.

God bless you.

Ken.

35:40 NOO

The BodyShop my father mentioned – and it’s founder Anita Roddick – were one of the few practical sources of support at this time. And it did help a lot.

My father’s campaign was getting international recognition and support. He was awarded the Right Livelihood Award (the ‘Nobel prize’ of the humanitarian world) in Sweden. My sister, Zina, and I travelled to Stockholm in the winter of 1994 to collect the award on our father’s behalf. 

We felt optimistic that our father would receive justice. The world was rooting for him.

My eldest brother, Ken Jr, travelled to Auckland, New Zealand, where the Commonwealth Summit was being held. He appealed to the various heads of state to put pressure on the Nigerian government to release the Ogoni Nine. But the Nigerian military dictatorship was more ruthless than we imagined and was not bowed by international pressure or shame.

36:40 MAJELLA

A very good book came out in 1995 by a Canadian journalist, and it has a wonderful name, ‘The Politics of Bones’ and it’s really the story of Owens Wiwa in all this. Owens Wiwa is ten years younger than Ken and he was the doctor in Ogoni – and he took on the cause as well and worked very closely with his brother all through. 

Somehow I think they knew – or maybe they didn’t – that arrests were imminent and he was told ‘go now’.

So he came to Lagos and lived the life of a fugitive in Lagos, going from place to place.

And Owens began the long task of trying to save his brothers life.

37:40 NOO 

There was no physical evidence linking my father to the crime. The two principal witnesses against my father swore affidavits claiming that they were bribed to give false evidence.

Despite this, in late October, the Tribunal delivered its verdicts. It found that there was sufficient evidence to conclude that my father had incited the murders of the four Ogoni chiefs. Six of the defendents were acquited. Nine were convicted. The Ogoni 9.

My father’s last letter to Majella  is from September 1995. It’s his last known correspondence to anyone.

38:30 BEN

September 14th, 1995

Dear Sr. Majella,

Many thanks for your letters up to the end of July or thereabouts. I believe that I’ve got everything you have sent thus far. Some of them come rather late and out of sequence, but I do get them. Because I keep them around me just to read and re-read them, I’ve had two of them seized lately. I hope that I will get them back, anyway, some day.

I expect that you have now started your new assignment and am really happy for you. It is hard to think that you will no longer be with us here in Nigeria, but it may well be that we shall be better served by your being away. God works in mysterious ways his wonders to perform.

__

The trial is being speeded up. Which means that every rule is being broken in order that it might end. I expect that it will end before you get this letter. I have information that judgement will not be delivered, which will mean that we will remain in prison for as long as the authorities please, keeping me out of circulation for as long as Abacha is in power.

I am not defending myself. I will want to make a Statement. I have already filed the Statement at the High Court here and a copy is available with my son in London, if you want to read it. It is possible that the Judge will not allow me to read it, but it is already a public document and the press can use it.

About a week ago, Major Obi Umahi (an Igbo) who now commands the Internal Security Task Force came to me and asked what he could do to ensure peace in Ogoni. I asked him to release the three Ogoni activists who were arrested after the raid on my office, and use them to speak to the Ogoni people. He promptly released them from detention at Afam the next day and brought them to my cell. He then sought my blessing of the peace effort he meant to launch. I gave that blessing after drawing his attention to the fact that there are three parties involved in the matter: the Ogoni people, Shell and the Government (State and Federal). I did not mind where he started from, I said, so long as he realized that peace could only come when justice is done.

My assumption is that Government are preparing the ground for the conviction of Ledum and myself—to ensure that the Ogoni do not riot when the inevitable verdict, long decided upon, is handed down.

Yesterday, the ground was cleared for that conviction when the no-case sub­mission made by the Legal Aid lawyers was dismissed.

42:00 MAJELLA

On the 10th of October, one month before Ken died, Ken Jnr his son came to Ireland to collect the Nobel nomination and it was the day I got my last letter from Ken.

It was written in September, but brought on October the 10^th. This was given…so…that took place.

42:30 NOO

On the morning of November 10th 1995, my father was executed along with Nordu Eawo, Saturday Dobee, Daniel Gbokoo, Paul Levura, Felix Nuate, Baribor Bera, Barinem Kiobel, and John Kpuinen.

After my father was executed, a wave of violence followed as the military cracked down on protesters. 

Around one thousand Ogonis, including some of my Aunts and cousins, had to flee to refugee camps in neighboring Benin. They lost their homes, their status, and had to start afresh, sent to locations around the United States.

The bodies of my father and his eight colleagues were immediately placed in unmarked graves in an undisclosed location. It took ten years and the help of forensic scientists before my family were able to retrieve his remains and bury him. 

43:40 BEN

Ogoni is buzzing with all sorts of noise, all sorts of expectation. The first meeting aimed at reconciliation was held yesterday (13th) the date on which our defence opened. I believe that the government will be told that peace in Ogoni depends also on all those now held in detention or driven underground being free. They won’t listen to that. I can only hope that our conviction does not lead to more trouble. I have tried to bring home to all the example of Christ which was, to our people, fictional, I guess. They are now going to learn a hard lesson and I hope they take it quietly.

I will keep you posted as events unravel. The ways of this struggle have been so unpredictable, I don’t know what to say. There is an unseen hand at work. We are just not in control, and no one seems to be. It’s amazing the things which do happen!

I must thank you and all those who have done so much work for us abroad. It’s nice to know that people who have worked or visited Ogoni are now turning up and lending assistance in various ways. The commitment of Anita Roddick is a great blessing. It has nettled the Nigerian High Commissioner in London, for one!

I am in good spirits, expecting the worst as usual, but hopeful for the best. My parents are always in court, and my father believes that I will be free at the end of the case. I’ve tried very hard to dampen his optimism but the old man won’t budge. I just hope he does not get a rude shock.

One source of worry is what will happen to our struggle when Ledum and I are put away. We had not had enough time to train the cadres or put alternative leaderships in place. And putting members of the Steering Committee on the police wanted list has deprived us of a lot of hands. 

I have been able to direct things and even contribute to the publicity war from detention. I don’t know if I’ll be able to do so from prison. We have no funds, not even a bank account. Everything had hinged so much upon my resources that my absence will cause a lot of problems. We’ll have to get around that somehow.

Don’t be embarrassed by my ocean of ink. I am not. 

I’m only tired now and must go to bed, to rise early and prepare for the boredom of the Tribunal.

Regards

Ken

46:40 MUSIC

NOO;

Through his campaign, my father and his colleagues shone a spotlight on ecological and indigenous justice struggles not just in Ogoni but around the world. The days of corporate impunity were gone. Organisations like the Body Shop, Amnesty International and Friends of the Earth, helped bring the plight of the Ogoni people to international attention. Nigeria was suspended from the Commonwealth. Without such international solidarity, Ogoni would have been a forgotten corner of Nigeria.

Shell pulled out of Ogoni in 1993, and I’m proud to think my father contributed to this.

There are still ongoing lawsuits against Shell. Esther Kiobel, and three other widows of the Ogoni Nine, are currently involved in a civil case against Shell in the Netherlands. They claim the company was complicit in the 1995 killings of their husbands. 

Shell deny any complicity in the killings and they say the court has already ruled that the allegation that they sought to influence the trial judges was unfounded, and that the allegations that Shell failed to do enough to prevent the execution of the Ogoni 9 were not substantiated.

We reached out to Shell during the making of this programme and they sent us the following statement: again voiced by ourselves: 

BARBRIE:  “The tragic events of 1995 shocked us deeply, but we have always denied, in the strongest possible terms, the allegations made in this case. We believe the evidence clearly shows that Shell was not responsible for these distressing events. While not involved in the Ogoni Tribunal, The Shell Group, alongside other organisations and individuals, did appeal for clemency to the military government in power in Nigeria at that time. To our deep regret those appeals went unheard.”

Despite my family’s pleas, in Nigeria the Ogoni 9 have still not been exonerated. My family feel it’s time for the Nigerian government to exonerate my father and the other men who were executed.    

The battle goes on. My father’s campaign ushered an era of social corporate responsibility . The air of impunity has gone. 

Things are far from perfect but he has inspired a new generation of activists on the ground who will continue his legacy.

For me his words remain an inspiration to anyone fighting against tyranny, and a reminder to oppressors the world over that the human spirit can never be broken.

49:45 BEN

I lie manacled in chain

In caves of your callous care.

But the day will come when I will

break your hard bones

With my claws, tear your brain,

Consume you in wrathful fires.

To the wild winds expose you.

Paint the cruel marks of your sin

On the walls of history.

50:25 MUSIC

50:30 NOO [Credits]

Silence Would Be Treason letters and poems were voiced by Ben Arogundade.

Music composed by Funsho Ogundipe, and performed by Ayetoro. 

The programme was produced by Bairbre Flood.

With thanks to Maynooth University Library who created a public archive of these writings, and Daraja Press who published them as an open source book.

I’m Noo Saro-Wiwa, for the BBC World Service.

51:00

---

Back to homepage / More podcasts / Another BBC World Service Documentary – Tumaini