words by Cheryl Ezekiel

Would you risk your life for the truth? Would you speak and write about the grave aspects that are driven by mankind’s lust for power? 

Words have occupied a space in the world where they are the primary means of communication. Writing is a realm of ideas, of debate; a space where the consequences of words are, for the most part, reputational, financial or psychological. We write safely and critique from within the walls of academic tenure, the blurred lines of online anonymity or the comfortable echo chambers of like-minded peers. 

Ken Saro-Wiwa was a Nigerian writer and environmental activist who shattered the comfortable nature of justice awareness. His life and his brutal, state-sanctioned murder in 1995 stand as a permanent indictment forcing us to ask: What does it mean to risk your life for the truth? And how has the West, often positioning itself as a champion of free speech, been complicit in silencing the radical voices from the Global South whose truths are most dangerous to power?

For Saro-Wiwa, truth was neither an abstract concept nor a philosophical premise to be debated in literary salons. It was the toxic elements that penetrated the natural environment such as the blackened water of the Niger Delta, the acid rain stunting the crops of the Ogoni people and the thick air that resulted from the toxic rot of continuous gas flares. He blatantly addressed multinational corporation Shell’s environmental breaches. The collusion of corporations with the brutal Nigerian military regime resulted in a systematic extraction of immense wealth that left  a wasteland of ecological and human devastation behind. Revealing this truth was not an act of commentary; it was a direct assault on the financial and political engines of megalomaniacs. 

He gradually revealed the brazen truth and started its propagation in the 1970s. His first method was the use of subtle satire in his popular television show "Basi & Company" to critique the moral decay of a society intoxicated by oil money. Later, he co-founded the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), channeling his literary power into the now-famous Ogoni Bill of Rights. This document was not just a petition, but a political and literary masterpiece that articulated a people’s demand for autonomy, environmental repair, and a share of the resources extracted from their land. He leveraged his knowledge to expose the colonial-style exploitation which has endured under a new, corporate guise. Every pamphlet, speech and interview was a calculated risk, a step closer to the inevitable confrontation with a state that viewed his truth as a most "dangerously subversive" threat.

Image: A man collects polluted water in Nigeria’s Niger delta. Akintunde Akinleye/REUTERS

Saro-Wiwa’s passion for the truth makes us introspect: Would we ever write something that could get us jailed or killed? For most of us, the answer is a prompt "no." We operate within a formula of safety that Saro-Wiwa deliberately rejected. We self-censor not by state decree, but by an internalised understanding of the boundaries of acceptable discourse, fearing professional ostracisation, online harassment or legal nuisance, but not a mock trial and a hangman’s noose. Saro-Wiwa’s writing was existential because it challenged a system whose very existence depended on the silence of the Ogoni. His words were not just describing an injustice; they were actively promoting mobilisation  against it, giving a name and a voice to a resistance that the authorities had extinguished. In such circumstances writing and language are not just means of communication, but the foundation to build the framework of a movement, and for that tyrants will silence those voices. 

The distant military junta did not act alone in silencing Ken Saro-Wiwa. It was facilitated by an ulterior Western agenda which promoted selective awareness and convenient forgetfulness and that still continues to marginalise revolutionary voices from the Global South. This agenda operates on several levels and has its ambassadors within the Global South as well. 

To start with, there is the economic entanglement. The same Western governments that highlight human rights were and are deeply invested in the stability of oil-producing regimes like Nigeria. Certain multinational oil titans wielded immense influence. The realpolitik forum operated to ensure the success of its most economically beneficial side. The West received and continues to receive more fuel at the expense of the Ogoni people. While there were condemnations, these were often muted, arriving too late and lacking the decisive economic or political power to correct the normalised wrongs. Saro-Wiwa was sacrificed on this diplomatic altar of political corporate interest. 

Second, there is the cultural and media filtration system. The West often celebrates voices which benefit its power dominion over similar voices which pose greater and fervent challenges to them. Saro-Wiwa’s message was profoundly inconvenient to this tactic. While his execution made headlines, the deep, systemic truth of his struggle, the corporate-state collusion and environmental racism were often diluted. He was sometimes framed as a martyr, but the radical, anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist core of his message was softened, making it easier to sacrifice the man than to tackle this adjunct capitalist system we’ve been subjugated to accept. 

Finally, there is the act of forgetting – or selective ignorance, as I prefer to call it. Ken Saro-Wiwa’s name is not a household one in the West. He is a fleeting reference in discussions of corporate social responsibility or human rights, and mostly unknown to the common masses. The reason the Global North has an abundance of resources is because of its excessive extraction and exploitation. The Global North has a short attention span for tragedies that do not directly serve its geopolitical narrative. We consume news of conflict and injustice as unfortunate events, rarely connecting them to the legacy of colonialism, the relentless greed of capitalism or our own consumption habits. By conveniently forgetting Saro-Wiwa, we absolve ourselves of the ongoing responsibility. The Niger Delta remains one of the most polluted places on earth; the patterns of exploitation Saro-Wiwa identified continue unabated. To remember him fully would be to acknowledge that the system he fought against is not a historical relic but a present-day reality and that the consumers and citizens of the West and Global North are its beneficiaries.

The legacy of Ken Saro-Wiwa is a burden and a beacon. It burdens the beneficiaries of the capitalist system with the knowledge that their comfort is built upon the silenced suffering of others. It also  brings light to the very purpose of writing, making us wonder if our words are merely decorative or if, contrarily, they possess the courage to confront power, no matter the cost. Saro-Wiwa’s story is a beacon because it proves that while a writer can be killed, the truth they etch into the world’s conscience cannot be so easily extinguished. His final words before his execution in 1995 still echo through decades with undiminished force: “Lord take my soul, but the struggle continues.” The struggle continues not only in the Niger Delta but in the conscience of every writer who chooses to pick up a pen. And for me, a writer from the Global South, it is the struggle against my partial comfort, my silence and my safety that can disappear without a trace if I write the blatant truth. As I write this, I know I am not as strong as Saro-Wiwa was, but I hope to be; as terrifying and daunting as it is. 

Will we, as humans, ever tackle the truth and challenge geopolitics for a fair future?