And 19 Other Ken Saro-Wiwa Quotes.
Ken Saro Wiwa is best known as the writer who
fought fiercely for the rights of the Ogoni people
in south-south Nigeria, eventually paying the
ultimate price.
Saro Wiwa was hanged today, November 10, but
back in 1995 – 20 years ago – after being tried
by a military tribunal he said had written the
judgement in advance.
In letter from prison, he wrote: “A year has gone
by since I was rudely roused from my bed and
clamped into detention.
“Sixty-five days in chains, weeks of starvation,
months of mental torture and, recently, the rides
in a steaming, airless Black Maria to appear
before a kangaroo court, dubbed a special
military tribunal, where the proceedings leave no
doubt that the judgment has been written in
advance. And a sentence of death against which
there is no appeal is a certainty.”
Here are 20 other quotes from the “true son” of
Ogoniland.
1. “Lord take my soul, but the struggle
continues.”
2. “The men we are dealing with are mindless,
Stone Age dictators addicted to blood.”
3. “In Nigeria, the only wrongdoers are those
who do no wrong; to live a day in Nigeria is to
die many times.”
4. “[Nigeria’s rulers] have been responsible for
the African nightmare, afraid as they are of ideas
and men of ideas. They are daylight robbers who
kill for money.”
5. “Water wey dey boil No hot like dis Nigeria.”
6. “Forgive me friend, if I laugh at what should
make me cry.”
7. “You cannot destroy an idea like mine…Even if
I were to die tomorrow, even if I were to be
locked up in prison…You can’t destroy an idea
like mine.”
8. “I want the country to be together. I want one
country, but I want a true federation, not this
apparition…”
9. “It is said that a prophet is not without honour
save in his country and in his own house. But I
have found honour among my beloved Ogoni
people who have suffered immensely in the last
hundred years.”
10. “The most important thing for me is that I’ve
used my talents as a writer to enable the Ogoni
people to confront their tormentors. I was not
able to do it as a politician or a businessman. My
writing did it. And it sure makes me feel good!
I’m mentally prepared for the worst, but hopeful
for the best. I think I have the moral victory.”
11. “Unless you go back to how the country
started, we will never be able to find a way out
of our dilemma.”
12. “The writer cannot be a mere storyteller; he
cannot be a mere teacher; he cannot merely X-
ray society’s weaknesses, its ills, its perils. He or
she must be actively involved shaping its present
and its future.”
13. “In this country [England], writers write to
entertain, they raise questions of individual
existence…but for a Nigerian writer in my
position you can’t go into that. Literature has to
be combative.”
14. “I have no doubt at all about the ultimate
success of my cause, no matter the trials and
tribulations which I and those who believe with
me may encounter on our journey. Neither
imprisonment nor death can stop our ultimate
victory.”
15. “I and my colleagues are not the only ones
on trial. Shell is here on trial and it is as well
that it is represented by counsel said to be
holding a watching brief.”
16. “Any nation which can do to the weak and
disadvantaged what the Nigerian nation has done
to the Ogoni, loses a claim to independence and
to freedom from outside influence.”
17. “Shell and the Nigerian military dictatorship
are violent institutions, as the Ogoni planned
peace and dialogue, Shell and the Nigerian
military plotted death and destruction.”
18. “I call upon the Ogoni people, the peoples of
the Niger delta, and the oppressed ethnic
minorities of Nigeria to stand up now and fight
fearlessly and peacefully for their rights. History
is on their side. God is on their side. For the
Holy Quran says in Sura 42, verse 41: ‘All those
that fight when oppressed incur no guilt, but
Allah shall punish the oppressor.’ Come the day.”
19. “The men who ordain and supervise this
show of shame, this tragic charade, are
frightened by the word, the power of ideas, the
power of the pen.”
20. “Whether I live or die is immaterial. It is
enough to know that there are people who
commit time, money and energy to fight this one
evil among so many others predominating
worldwide. If they do not succeed today, they
will succeed tomorrow.” culled from www.thecable.ng
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