Ken Saro-Wiwa Hero in History Medallion

Ken Saro-Wiwa
Photograph by Tim Lambon, 1995
Courtesy Tim Lambon/Greenpeace

His was a voice—for environmental justice, and for the Ogoni peoples—that could not be stopped.

Ken Saro-Wiwa
1941–1995, b. Bori, Nigeria
Worked in Port Harcourt, Nigeria

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.
—Ken Saro-Wiwa

I am more dangerous dead.
—Ken Saro-Wiwa
• Alternately a writer, television producer, professor, and civil servant, Saro-Wiwa turned to activism as global oil companies’ environmental damage to Ogoniland grew.
• Saro-Wiwa helped found the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) to bring global attention to the destruction of the Niger Delta—still one of the earth’s most polluted places.
• Saro-Wiwa and eight other Ogoni leaders were summarily arrested and executed in 1995 by the military dictator ruling Nigeria at the time.
• As a martyr, Saro-Wiwa’s voice grew exponentially. Nigeria was suspended from the Commonwealth of Nations until the return of democracy.