‘We All Stand Before History’

Our second season focuses on the life and legacy of Ken Saro-Wiwa, a writer and one of nine non-violent Ogoni activists the General Sani Abacha military government brutally executed in 1995. The Ogoni are an ethnic group situated in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. For years, they have suffered pollution and environmental degradation stemming from crude oil extraction on their land. Saro-Wiwa's protests against oil companies such as Shell, including his leadership of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), frustrated the Abacha government, which relied heavily on oil exports.

Hosted by Wale Lawal, founder and editor-in-chief of The Republic.

In 2006, Nigerian-British sculptor Sokari Douglas-Camp was commissioned by Platform to create a work of art in honour of Ken Saro-Wiwa. She created a life-sized replica of a Nigerian steel bus called ‘Battle Bus: Living Memorial for Ken Saro-Wiwa’. In 2015, when the bus arrived at the Lagos Seaport for a commemoration in Bori, it was impounded by port authorities. Nearly 30 years since the executions, what is it about Saro-Wiwa that continues to aggravate the Nigerian ruling establishment? How have the Ogoni people come to terms with the execution of the Ogoni Nine and the unresolved environmental crisis? What does the Niger Delta crisis tell us about what it means to be Nigerian?