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the Nigerian state, stating that “the true interest of [the ethnic minorities in Nigeria] lay in a more equitable country where all groups would be fairly treated, where all groups had self-determination. Biafra was not that country.”⁵ However, his views echoed those expressed in the Minorities Commission Report, especially regarding Ogoni domination by the larger ethnic political groups in the country. For him, as it was for many in Nigeria, this was not merely domination, but a form of imperialism, virtually indistinguishable from the British variety in its domination and oppression of minority rights.

      The 1950s also saw one of the most important developments for the future of Nigeria: the discovery of rich petroleum deposits in the Niger Delta. This discovery proved disastrous for the Ogoni. In 1956, Shell-BP discovered oil in the town of Oloibiri, in the southern Niger Delta near the town of Brass. In 1958, the first commercial drilling began. This quickly transformed the Niger Delta and the Nigerian economy as a whole. The oil revenue came under the control of the ruling elites. As government revenues came to depend almost exclusively on the petroleum sector, the Niger Delta, including Ogoni lands, became the main source of government funds, effectively subsidizing the Nigerian government and, unofficially, its corrupt officials before and especially after independence. Though oil exploitation and the destruction of the Ogoni environment are discussed in a separate chapter, the colonial government system that continued into independence ensured that the Ogoni, and most of the other ethnicities in Nigeria, saw their lands and the profits from those lands redistributed among the powerful elites that controlled the country.

      When Lord Lugard orchestrated Nigeria’s unification in 1912–14, he sought to create a more efficient, economically unified political entity. Lugard began a process, continued by subsequent British administrators, which transformed the Nigerian economy and the relations among its various societies. When Nigeria became independent on October 1, 1960, tensions within the country intensified as competing groups already vying for a stake in the British colonial system fought for control and influence over a diverse, resource-rich state struggling to transform itself into a self-sufficient nation.

      In the early years of Nigerian independence, the country lurched from crisis to crisis as the pains of a political system built on ethnic sectionalism and mistrust overshadowed the euphoria of liberation from British colonial rule. Almost immediately after independence, the drive for the federalization of the country was renewed, culminating in 1963 with the creation of the Midwestern Region.

      Map 1.1 Nigeria to 1967

      The creation of the new region did little to alleviate ethnic or religious tension in the country. In 1962, the Nigerian government undertook a census to determine, among other things, parliamentary seat allocation in anticipation of the 1963 general election. In the previous elections, held in 1959, the Northern People’s Congress (NPC) won 134 of the 314 seats in the House of Representatives, despite winning only 28.2 percent of the vote. The predominantly southern coalition, National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC), won 36.1 percent of the vote, but because of parliamentary allocation, secured only 89 seats. A predominantly western coalition, the Action Group (AG), won 27.6 percent of the vote but secured only 73 seats due to the same electoral system. This political system, which so heavily favored the Northern Region, meant that southerners found the temptation irresistible to remedy this inequity with creative census procedures.⁶ Initial census figures released in May 1963 showed that the Western and Eastern regions’ populations increased by 70 percent in the decade since the 1953 census. The Northern Region’s population grew by only 30 percent in the same period. As a result, the NPC government ordered a second census to be taken, where the population numbers in the north were adjusted to meet the reported growth in the south, thus maintaining the status quo in parliament.

      Both the 1964 general election and the 1965 Western Region election were as corrupt as the census. In order to wrest control from the NPC, the AG and NCNC united with smaller parties from the north to form a new coalition called the United Progressive Grand Alliance (UPGA). Some in the southern parties, led by the unpopular Western Region premier, Samuel Akintola, feared a UPGA victory. Akintola formed a new southern party called the Nigerian National Democratic Party (NNDP) and united with the NPC to form the Nigerian National Alliance (NNA). UPGA activists were arrested en masse in the north; in one case in Kano 297 UPGA campaigners were detained, with some held until after the elections and others released and ordered to return to their homes in the south. UPGA candidates were denied access to the ballots, resulting in 50.57 percent of the Northern Region seats going unopposed to NNA candidates. As a result of these tactics, the NCNC boycotted the elections and only agreed to contest them on March 18, 1965, after NCNC leader Nnamdi Azikiwe secured concessions from the NPC head and the prime minister, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa.

      These tactics eroded Nigerians’ faith in the electoral system. The next election, in the Western Region, further reinforced this distrust. Akintola’s NNDP vowed to win the election by any means necessary. According to Saro-Wiwa, “NNDP politicians threatened to win, whether the electorate voted or not. And win they did! In some cases, the results were declared before the ballot boxes were opened!”⁷ The NNDP engaged in massive electoral rigging, and infighting among the AG and NCNC resulted in candidates from these parties running against each other, splitting the vote and ensuring NNDP victories. When results were announced, both sides declared victory, resulting in widespread violence that amounted to a veritable civil war within the Western Region.

      Like most in Nigeria’s early years of independence, Saro-Wiwa grew to detest the political structure revolving around the large ethnic groups and centering on a north-south divide. This divide naturally focused on the large ethnic groups and the power dynamics between them, while minorities like Saro-Wiwa’s Ogoni were excluded.

      It was into this political, social, and cultural maelstrom that Kenule Saro-Wiwa was born on October 10, 1941.

       2

       Saro-Wiwa’s Childhood and Education

      Ken Saro-Wiwa was born Kenule Beeson Tsaro-Wiwa on October 10, 1941, to Jim Beeson Tsaro-Wiwa and his third wife, Widu, in their home in Bane, the center of the Khana kingdom. Tsaro, or Saro, is the Ogoni honorific for a firstborn son of the family. Kenule went by Tsaro-Wiwa until after the Nigerian Civil War in 1970, during which his government correspondence still used Tsaro-Wiwa. He changed his last name to Saro-Wiwa sometime in the early 1970s, apparently for esthetic purposes.

      Saro-Wiwa’s father, a forest ranger and businessman, had tried for many years to have children, but his first wife could not bear children, and his second wife suffered a string of miscarriages. Saro-Wiwa’s mother had also miscarried several times before Kenule was born. Unsurprisingly, his birth was not a simple one, and he was left for dead five times perhaps due to a congenital heart disorder, but he managed to rally each time. Despite the circumstances of his birth, he was a well-adjusted child. He walked at seven months and remained an only child until the age of seven. He was the pride of his family, which later included a sister, Barine, and a brother, Owens.

      Saro-Wiwa’s early life followed much the same trajectory as that of many children living during the transition in Nigeria from traditional education to the British colonial system. The Ogoni, like many other societies in the Niger Delta, relied heavily on agriculture and aquaculture. Because of this, the traditional education system in Ogoni focused on educating the youth for a life of subsistence farming. One of the primary ways Ogoni youth claimed their place in adult society was through the Yaa tradition. Yaa was a ritualistic passage to adulthood in Ogoni society, focusing on the militaristic aspects of defending Ogoni territory along with cultivating respect for the economic and cultural mainstays defining Ogoni culture. This coming-of-age ritual was of paramount importance in traditional Ogoni society but was being supplanted by colonial education. Saro-Wiwa therefore had a hybrid early education: he was enrolled at the Native Authority School in Bori while participating in the traditional educational activities of the Yaa tradition. Despite his weak heart, he excelled at many of these exercises, especially palm wine tapping and various athletic practices.

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