Saro-Wiwa, Ken (1931-1995)

Nigerian writer, environmentalist, and political leader of the Ogoni, an ethnic minority occupying Nigeria's oil-rich delta region. In 1991 he founded the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) and began a vigorous international campaign against the environmental damage caused by oil exploitation. Arrested for the murder of four prominent Ogoni activists in May 1994, Saro Wiwa and eight others were executed by the military leadership in November 1995. Nigeria was suspended from the Commonwealth and condemned by the United Nations in a General Assembly vote as a result of the executions.

After reading English at the University of Ibadan, Saro Wiwa taught at the universities of Nsukka and Lagos. In 1968, during the Nigerian civil war, he was appointed administrator of the oil port of Bonny and later became a minister in the newly created Rivers State. After he was dropped in 1973, he concentrated on his writing, his works including On a Darkling Plain (1987), a book about the Biafran civil war from the perspective of a minority ethnic group, and the script for a popular television comedy series. In 1994 he won the international Right Livelihood Award for his work for the Ogoni.