Kenule Beeson "Ken" Saro-Wiwa was a Nigerian writer, television producer, and environmental activist. Saro-Wiwa was a member of the Ogoni people, an ethnic minority in Nigeria whose homeland, Ogoniland, in the Niger Delta, has been targeted for crude oil extraction since the 1950s and has suffered extreme environmental damage from decades of indiscriminate petroleum waste dumping.
Sani Abacha ; was a Nigerian military officer and politician who ruled as the military head of state after seizing power in 1993 until his death in 1998. Abacha's seizure of power was the last successful coup d'état in Nigerian military history.
The Ogoni Nine were a group of nine activists from the Ogoni region of Nigeria who opposed the operating practices of the Royal Dutch Shell oil corporation in the Niger Delta region. The military government in Nigeria was threatened by their work and arrested them for murders of four Ogoni chiefs. Social activist and head of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), Ken Saro-Wiwa, alongside eight of his fellow leaders—Saturday Dobee, Nordu Eawo, Daniel Gbooko, Paul Levera, Felix Nuate, Baribor Bera, Barinem Kiobel, and John Kpuine—were put on trial under the false pretext that the group had incited the murder of four Ogoni chiefs.
Kenule "Ken" Bornale Tsaro-Wiwa, also known as Ken Saro-Wiwa, Jr, although he himself chose to use the name Ken Wiwa, was a Nigerian journalist and author. The eldest son of human rights activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, he worked as an adviser to three Nigerian presidents.
The Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), is a social movement organization representing the indigenous Ogoni people of Rivers State, Nigeria. The Ogoni contend that Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC), along with other petroleum multinationals and the Nigerian government, have destroyed their environment, polluted their rivers, and provided no benefits in return for enormous oil revenues extracted from their lands.
Nigerian literature may be roughly defined as the literary writing by citizens of the nation of Nigeria for Nigerian readers, addressing Nigerian issues. This encompasses writers in a number of languages, including not only English but Igbo, Urhobo, Yoruba, and in the northern part of the county Hausa and Nupe. More broadly, it includes British Nigerians, Nigerian Americans and other members of the African diaspora.
The Ogonis are a people in the Rivers South-East senatorial district of Rivers State, in the Niger Delta region of southern Nigeria. They number just over 2 million and live in a 1,050-square-kilometre (404-square-mile) homeland which they also refer to as Ogoniland. They share common oil-related environmental problems with the Ijaw people of the Niger Delta.
Jude Dibia is a Nigerian novelist. In 2007, he won the Ken Saro-Wiwa Prize for Prose for his novel Unbridled.
There are over 525 native languages spoken in Nigeria. The official language and most widely spoken lingua franca is English, which was the language of Colonial Nigeria. Nigerian Pidgin – an English-based creole – is spoken by over 60 million people.
Monday Owens Wiwa is a medical doctor and human rights activist. He is the brother of executed Ogoni leader Ken Saro-Wiwa, and the son of Ogoni chief Jim Wiwa. Wiwa is an internationally renowned expert on the effects of globalisation, especially as it relates to the highly controversial business practices of Royal Dutch Shell in the Niger Delta. Vice-chairman of the Toronto chapter of the Sierra Club Canada and an active member of Amnesty International, Wiwa is frequently called upon to advocate for development programs in Canada and abroad and to campaign for increased corporate responsibility. This work has taken him to Ireland, which he visits in support of the Shell to Sea campaign. Currently, he is the Global Vice President Human Resource for Health, Director for West Africa and Central Africa and Country Director, Nigeria for Clinton Health Access Initiative.
Bori City is a city in Khana Local Government Area, Rivers State, southern Nigeria. It is the birthplace of author and activist Ken Saro-Wiwa.
Khana is a Local Government Area located in the South-East senatorial district of Rivers State, Nigeria. Its administrative seat is in the town of Bori.
Zina Saro-Wiwa is a Brooklyn-based video artist and filmmaker. She makes video installations, documentaries, music videos and experimental films.
Gokana kingdom is among the six kingdoms of the Ogoni people in Ogoni in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. Gokana kingdom has geographic, historic and ethno-linguistic elements with some 130,000 Gokana language speakers located in the Gokana Local Government Area in Rivers State. Gokana contains a tremendous number of villages, including Lewe, B.Dere (Barayowa-Dere), K. Dere (Kegbara-Dere), Nwe-biara Kpor, Mogho, Bomu, Bodo, Gio-koo, Nwe-ol, Bera, Biara, Deeyor, Gbe, Goi, Barako, Deken, and Yeghe.
Nigerian English, also known as Nigerian Standard English, is a dialect of English spoken in Nigeria. Based on British English, the dialect contains various loanwords and collocations from the native languages of Nigeria, due to the need to express concepts specific to the cultures of ethnic groups in the nation.
Basi and Company was a Nigerian sitcom which ran from 1986 to 1990 on NTA, and was later syndicated across Africa. Written and produced by Ken Saro-Wiwa and filmed in Enugu, the show derived inspiration from African folklore and lampooned widespread corruption in oil-rich Nigeria while highlighting its consequences. To date, it remains one of Africa's most watched comedy programmes, with an estimated thirty million viewers during its peak.
Obi Wali was a minority rights activist, politician, distinguished senator, literary scholar, and an orator from Nigeria. Among his achievements, he fought for the cause of the Ikwerre ethnic minorities and argued that African literature should be written in African languages.
Femi Ojo Ade was a Nigerian writer, novelist, poet, critic and Professor Emeritus of French Studies and Black History.
The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives is the title of the 2010 debut novel by the Nigerian poet Lola Shoneyin. The novel was longlisted for the prestigious Women's Prize for Fiction in 2011. It won the PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Literary Award in 2011 and the ANA Ken Saro-Wiwa Prose Prize in the same year. It was short listed for the NLNG Nigeria prize for literature in 2012 and was listed in the top ten novels about Nigeria by The Observer newspaper in 2014. It has been translated into several languages including Arabic and has been adapted for the stage and screen.
Looking for Transwonderland: Travels in Nigeria is a 2012 non-fiction memoir and travelogue by Noo Saro-Wiwa. In it Saro-Wiwa travels across Nigeria, re-discovering the country of her birth. The book has been compared to those of many other diasporic writers.
