Genocide in Nigeria

Description

This collection of newspaper columns and articles mostly written in the 1970s and 1980s perhaps provides the best overview of Saro-Wiwa's political and environmental concerns. The articles document his concerns about the fate of the Ogoni people and their mistreatment by multinational oil companies and collaborating Nigerian government. Saro-Wiwa argues that the Ogoni are a minority in Nigeria, exploited by the ruling ethnic majority, and that the Federal Government of Nigeria was threatening the Ogoni with genocide. At the time, this was a key publication in bringing the Ogoni tragedy to the attention of the international community. Nowadays, it is of continual relevance to present day concerns about the actions of the oil companies, indigenous and environmental rights in the Delta region.

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A Month and a Day: A Detention Diary

Description

This is the extraordinary and moving account of Ken Saro-Wiwa's period of detention in 1993, and is also a personal history of the man who gave voice to the campaign for basic human and political rights for the Ogoni people. It was fear of his success that made Saro-Wiwa the target of the despotic Nigerian military regime. Arrested on 21 June 1993, ostensibly for his part in election-day disturbances, he describes in harrowing detail the conditions under which he was held. He writes of his involvement with the Ogoni cause and his instrumental role in the setting up of the movement for the survival of the Ogoni people.

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Customer Reviews

When a master speaks, one can't help but listen
Ken wrote this book in such an engaging fashion that I have to confess that amidst the horrors described in it, I thoroughly enjoyed the book. Be it his sarcastic wit, his detailed descriptions of people and surroundings, or purely his mastery of the craft of story-telling, his blend being a marriage of west African storytelling and a mastery of the English language. I was a young student in Southeastern Nigeria when Ken was murdered. All I knew about him at the time was that he was the author and producer of a show I greatly enjoyed, "Basi & Co" in my preteens, and that he was advocating for the rights of the Ogoni. I was greatly educated by the book both about Ken's extensive history of public service in Nigeria (although he doesn't fit the typical construct) and more importantly about how Nigeria might move forward out of it's current pitiful condition. Thank you sir and may our generation see the realities you died for.

2009-06-16 (Syracuse, NY) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 5

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Fantastic Read
The more I read this book, the more I understood how important it was for the erstwhile military junta of the time to eliminate Dr. Kenure SAro-Wiwa. This book is a blinding shot in the eye for anyone who was in one way or the other called out for acts the author painstakingly makes the reader to personify. It delves into all manners of "human's inhuman to human," if I dare call it so. Read this, especially if you wish to know the state of the current Africa, using Nigeria as a backdrop, in relation to the rest of the world.

2005-10-08 | Helpful Votes: 2 | Rating: 4

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Epic
This story will go down in history - have the courage to read this book and pass it on.

RJS

2003-04-14 | sawyerj9 (jackson, ms) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 5

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A Respledent Classic against imperial and local oppressors
This is a classic text that chronicles the degrading and dehumanizing process of intimidation of by a dictatorial regime embedded in repressive antics and deviously blood-thirsty. This book comes from the lived experience of Ken Saro-Wiwa, Nigeria's foremost environmentalist and literary writer. He, it was who led his Ogoni people to challenge the environmental degradation of their environment by the Anglo-Dutch Shell corporation through gas flaring, oil spillage and soil degeneration, and the exploiting gimmicks of a militarized centralist and thievery regime. In this work Saro-Wiwa, chronicles his role,in the evolution of the history of the struggles for relevance and records the methods of organization and mobilization of the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP)into a vibrant, virulently vocal and highly feared movement. This work derived from the author's contact with the evil of human authority, hence it is a direct a product of his experiences with the malevolent human-evil-forces that were unlynched against him and the struggle. The expereinces reminisced here is just one of his many in the series of unwarranted detentions in the hand of the evil regimes of Ibrahim Babangida and Sani Abacha in unkempt cells of the Nigerian security apparatus in different cities of Nigeria. On another occassion- the detention from which he smuggled this book out to be printed- he would not come out alive. He would be "judicially murdered" by the junta whose guns were brought by the sweat of humble and victimized tax-payers like Ken- representative of repressed Nigerians- and from the money derived from oil that springs from underneath his Niger-Delta homeland-including his Ogoni group. Ken did not leave out the Nigerian Police and their inhumanity- dogs who devour the flesh of other dogs- in fact they act like "vulture." A loaded term in Ogoni parlance! This work goes to show the plight of minorities within such colonial contraptions as the Nigerian nation state, under the dominating rule of a northern hegemony and a limited military clique in collaboration with their favor and fund-questing (fat-bellied) civilian cronies. This goes to further prove the fact that colonialism subjugated many ethnic groups under a contraption that was never dialogued nor radically sanctioned.Is it any surprise that Somali, Rwanda, Burundi, Zaire, Sierra Leone have gone on ruptured by the thunders of machine guns! In this vein the book brings to the fore the problem of such political hypocrisy as such as the overtly caricatured Federalism which is practiced by the Nigerian government. In a way Ken Saro-Wiwa, credenced the fact that all ethnic nationalities must radically be allowed to shape their destiny and control their resources. Further, this book reveals the filthy environmental practices of the multinationals who without regards to safety measures and ecological ethics endanger the lives of people in the orgy for profit-making. Profit-making predominates in the psyche of the multinations in deterrence for the sanctity of the human life! Double business and ethical standards-one for Africa another for the West- in fact Ken calls this "environmental racism." This book is a resplendent classic, and it is essentially valuable for all those who want to educate themselves on one of the most forceful and feared Social, ethnic and environmental movements that has arisen in post-colonial Africa today. In fact, the book goes to show the courageous fights of minorities and social movements towards advocating and ensuring changes. Ken Saro-Wiwa its author was crudely exterminated with eight others on a farce of a trial- a militarized set-up tribunal of the despised tyrannt of Sani Abacha in 1995. Saro-Wiwa is dead but remains a living-dead, an ancestor of a sort for the many social movements that revolves around emphasizing rural development and sound environmental norms and sanctity for the community where companies are located that are emerging in Nigeria today, and it would not be an overstatement to add Africa. His ideas and views radiates and takes on flesh in this little book. Buy one today, read and digest it and realize what a portent book it is, and know why the author was most few by a modern day dictator, who feared men and women of ideas than he feared the men and women who hold the guns! Happy reading! Bon voyage!

2000-08-26 | Attah (Missouri, United States) | Helpful Votes: 17 | Rating: 5

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Sozaboy

Description

Sozaboy describes the fortunes of a young naive recruit in the Nigerian Civil War: from the first proud days of recruitment to the disillusionment, confusion and horror that follows. The author's use of 'rotten English' - a mixture of Nigerian pidgin English, broken English and idiomatic English - makes this a unique and powerful novel.

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Customer Reviews

One of my very favorite books
I read Sozaboy about once a year. I love it. I don't know how many copies I've given away, a dozen at least. I never tire of it.

A key feature of this book is the language. The author calls it "rotten English". Rotten English is a mix of Pidgeon English, corrupted English and good English. The voice is musical and magical. I can hear my West African friends in my ear as I read.

The language is evocative. You are there. You see this man-child move from place to place, from side to side, never really understanding the world around him. What soldier really grasps the meaning and purpose of war? What soldier can really find his or her own place in the chaos? Right and wrong get lost in the meat grinder.

The last paragraph never fails to make me weep.

"And I was thinking how I was prouding before to go to soza and call myself Sozaboy. But now if anybody say anything about war or even fight, I will just run and run and run and run and run. Believe me yours sincerely."

It stands up with the very best anti war fiction.

2010-03-05 | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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Comments on "Sozaboy"
Ken Saro-Wiwa's book brings us face to face with people we otherwise only see at a distance on TV as masses being hurled about by chaos and war. We see the world through the eyes of the "soldier boy" himself, a world that is perhaps alien to us at first but that increases in familiarity with every increase in compassion and identification with the main character, whom we get to know increasingly as a real human being who lives life differently but fundamentally on our terms also. The novel is a "must read" for anyone who tries to come to terms with the realities of the Third World.

2009-02-28 | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 5

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Oh God our father, why did you make man as wicked as that with his own brother?
Ken Saro-Wiwa's `Sozaboy' is one of the most poignant anti-war novels ever written.

It is the story of a young apprentice driver for whom all uniformed human beings are heroes ... until he becomes one himself. Fighting on both sides of the front line and not knowing exactly for whom, it becomes clear to him that `little soldiers' are only `dead bodies' in the hands of corrupt powermongerers (generals, politicians, businessmen).
His whole world breaks down: why are people continuing to make children in this hellish world?

This brutal and shocking masterpiece is a must read for all those interested in world literature. Its phrasing in `rotten English' gives it a particularly tragic accent.

Ken Saro-Wiwa's death is also an utmost tragical one. He was condemned for `high treason' and hanged, because he defended his ogoni people against the ravages of their territory by an international oil company. A crime against humanity.

2009-01-13 (Beernem, Belgium) | Helpful Votes: 2 | Rating: 5

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interesting and quite revealing
Ken Saro Wiwa was one of the rising stars of Nigerian Literature coming after the legendary triumvirate of Achebe,Soyinka and John Pepper Clarke-Bekederemo till his voice was cut down inhis prime.The setting of the novel is an African Country which he does not mention though it is obviously Nigeria.It tells a harrowing tale of a soldier who joins the war not understanding what he is fighting for.The narrator is a naive apprentice driver who ends up in prisoner of war camps,refugee camps and witnesses the wanton destruction finally becoming disillusioned he walks away from it all only to discover the loss of all he holds dear.The language in which it is written is actually a form of speaking common in NIGERIA it is a beautiful mix of corrupted English words transposed with direct translations from African languages.There is a glossary that will be usefull to those unfamiliar with this.

2000-01-28 | Helpful Votes: 12 | Rating: 4

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The beauty of the book lies in what is not said.
The skill with which Ken paints his characters, using very few words, and fewer adjectives is unsurpassed

1999-11-07 | Helpful Votes: 8 | Rating: 5

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Mr B (Saros junior series)

Description

This Novel for children relates the adventure of Mr B - the hero whose exploits have been made into the popular Nigerian television series "Basi and Company".

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Mr B Again (Saros Star Series)

Description

In the sequel to Mr B, the great conman of Lagos and the hero of Basi and Company tricks Mr Penigo, a gullible farmer, into believing he can become a millionaire overnight. When he finally confronts Mr B, it is to learn that the only way to success is through hard work and clear thinking.

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On a Darkling Plain: Account of the Nigerian Civil War (Saros star series)

Description

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