In the 10 years since Ken Saro-Wiwa's execution, oil remains the curse of the Niger Delta. And as the U.S. relies more heavily on the region's oil, tensions continue to rise.
This week there will be ceremonies in over 30 countries from India to Ireland, Pakistan to Bangladesh, from the UK to the US in memory of the activist Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight of his compatriots who were executed by the Nigerian military 10 years ago.
On November 10, 1995, Saro-Wiwa and the others were hung after a sham trial condemned as "judicial murder" by Britain's then Prime Minister John Major. Their real crime had been to take on the might of the oil giant Shell and one of the world's most brutal military dictatorships.
Saro-Wiwa and the others were from Ogoniland, a small densely populated region of the Niger Delta, where Shell had found oil in the '50s. While the company had grown rich from the profits extracted from the Delta, the communities lived in poverty, lacking basic facilities such as health care and clean water. In the early '90s, Saro-Wiwa and the Ogoni mobilized, holding a rally in January 1993, where some 300,000 Ogoni protested against Shell.
"The march is against the devastation of the environment," said Saro-Wiwa. "It is against the non-payment of royalties. It is anti-Shell. It is anti-federal government, because as far as we are concerned the two are in league to destroy the Ogoni people."
