The second death of Ken Saro-Wiwa
Ken Saro-Wiwa Jr authored one book in his life time. He was struggling with the second when he died on October 18, 2016.
November 10 marked 21 years since his father and namesake, famous writer and environmental activist, Ken Saro-Wiwa was hanged by the Abacha regime in 1995. A year ago, on the 20th anniversary of that infamous hanging, Ken Saro-Wiwa Jr had written a moving tribute to his father and the course he had died for.
“Sometimes it seems as if 10 November 1995 was another era. In some ways it was, and in others, it feels like it was just yesterday. Between the disabling nature of his death and the enabling tests of time, one thought still sustains me: it is the old idea that the arc of the moral universe may be long, but it still bends towards justice,” he said in the piece titled ‘Finally It Seems My Father May Not Have Died in Vain’ published in The Guardian UK on on Novemer 2015.
It is November again and the Wiwa family will bury another son. And one year on from his article, Ken Saro-Wiwa Jr departs, the justice he sought for his father still a nebulous dream and perhaps now even more farfetched since its champion had exited the stage.
I remember when I first met Ken Saro-Wiwa Jr. He was invited to read his book at Lola Shoneyin’s “Infusion,” the go-to event then for literature lovers in Abuja (before Shoneyin packed her things, moved to Lagos and started the incredible Ake Arts and Book Festival in Abeokuta). It was in February 2011.
I was impressed with Ken then. He was stocky and brawny and what he lacked in height he made up for with his deep voice. He was at the time an adviser to the president. In the course of his life, he advised three Nigerian presidents in different capacities, from Olusegun Obasanjo to Umaru Yar’Adua and finally Goodluck Jonathan, with whom he left the presidential villa in 2015 after defeat at the polls. He was young then when I first met him. And he was still young when he died. He was only 48. Not long before his death, he had shared photos on Instagram of himself and his two sons, who were both taller than him already, playing football and generally goofing around. He would later suffer a stroke, from which he would not recover.
That first night I had seen him I had been impressed by how he had batted away questions about why he had not joined the Niger Delta militancy and avenge his father’s death through violence. About if he felt like a sell-out working with the Nigerian government, which had, years before, hanged his father in very controversial circumstances. The image of the man that emerged that night was that of a patriot and a levelheaded man.
His first and eventually only book was a memoir titled “In the Shadow of a Saint”, which he had read from that night. It is about the life and times of his father and his relationship with him. The title would suggest a very glowing portrayal of his father, a national and international figure, but that was far from the truth. I was shocked by the book. If anything, it was brutally honest about his very difficult relationship with his father, his father’s womanising and maltreatment of his mother, and his rage against his father. When I interviewed him later and asked if he felt the need to tone down some of the issues he raised about his father he said, “I was writing a memoir. I had to be honest.”
What emerged then from reading that book was the image of two men-father and son-who shared the same name but were ideologically different. He was only 25 when the death sentence was pronounced on his father and at that age, he was thrust into the forefront of a global campaign to save the life of the father he had a love-hate relationship with. He met world leaders, shook hands with them and stood with them for photo ops. It was something that filled him with resentment when he realised that world leaders, including the likes of Nelson Mandela, revelled in the opportunity to pose with him for photo to show their commitment to saving the life of his father, a commitment he was certain didn’t go beyond the public proclamations.
When his father was hung in 1995, Ken Wiwa was in Australia trying to persuade the Commonwealth heads of Government to intervene before the sentence was carried out.
“I was sitting in a restaurant chatting and laughing with friends when I felt a brief palpitation in my chest - it felt like a vital connection had been ruptured inside me and I just knew. It was midnight in Auckland and midday in Nigeria and my father had just been hanged; his broken body lay in a shallow sand pit in a hut at the condemned prisoners block at Port Harcourt Prison,” he had written in his book.
Inevitably, the lives of the two Ken Saro-Wiwas were intertwined. The stories of their lives and deaths had been entangled by circumstances and fate.
Since that first interview, we met several times. Once on the bus between Lagos and Abeokuta for the maiden Ake Arts and Book Festival, and a number of times at other events were we had coincided. And in 2014, when I alongside other African writers as part of the Africa39 had visited Port Harcourt, he hosted us at the Ken Saro Wiwa Foundation offices. He showed us around the building that had once been his father’s office and where some of his personal effects had been preserved. He talked us through what he wanted to achieve with the foundation and admitted his admiration for writers who have managed to knuckle down and write. It wasn’t a populist statement because you could see in his eyes that it was coming from a deep place, from someone who really wanted to write but had been sidetracked by life, by public service and perhaps the weight of his famous father’s legacy.
The last time I saw him was at Café de Vie where the Abuja Book Party for my novel was held last November. I was surprised to see him there. I haven’t seen him in quite a while.
He sort me out and congratulated me. “You and Elnathan have been tearing up the media,” he said, “I heard you on the BBC and said I had to attend. I may disappear later though.”
It was a brief conversation but he managed to mention that he was struggling with his second book. The demands of the night meant we couldn’t have a longer conversation and before long, he did what he said he would do. He disappeared.
News of his death came as a shock to the literati at home and abroad. The politicians made their noises, offered their condolences. But the literati were too stunned, are still are, I presume. It would seem they are clutching their hearts, hoping their silence would bring him back.
Death has the habit of cutting short dreams. Ken Wiwa’s happens to be one of the painful examples. Two young children and an unfinished book. Nothing a writer dreads more than that.