I feel the family of Ken Saro-Wiwa and the Ken Saro-Wiwa Foundation need to do better in promoting and sustaining the literary works and legacy of Ken Saro-Wiwa. Getting a copy of a title by Ken Saro-Wiwa today has been another definition of the word “difficult”.
During the 2018 Kangaroo Poetry Festival, we had the plan to exhibit his works in knowledgement of the fact that the Kangaroo Poetry Movement sprang from his ideologies, but not a copy was on display despite doing everything within my ability.
Life’s events and outcomes are run by a predetermined course of fate. I feel it is high time the family of Ken Saro-Wiwa accepted the harsh reality that their father, son and brother was destined to give to his community and never be given or given back. They have to do everything they can to sustain the legacy of their father and son because the community for which he laid his life is not interested.
That is why despite the billions of naira received in the name of Ogoni, one cannot find any memorial project in honour of Ken Saro-Wiwa and those who died with him, and with whose blood the money now flows.
That is why 30 years after the death of Ken Saro-Wiwa one cannot find his statue standing anywhere in Ogoni.
That is why the Ogoni politician cannot waste his time to attend any event organized in memory of or to sustain the ideas of Ken Saro-Wiwa, unless it is an election year when he can use the platform to tell the people how, like Biblical Moses, he is going to divide the red sea of poverty and allow the people walk into manna.
That is why MOSOP is now the property of a political party.
We are not always ready to tell this side of the story, but it is what it is.
– Saro Ogumba, a poet, writes from Port Harcourt
