Kenule Beeson "Ken" Saro-Wiwa (10 October 1941 – 10 November 1995) was a Nigerian writer, television producer, and environmental activist. Ken 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. Initially as a spokesperson, and then as the president, of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), Saro-Wiwa led a nonviolent campaign against environmental degradation of the land and waters of Ogoniland by the operations of the multinational petroleum industry, especially the Royal Dutch Shell company. He criticised the Nigerian government for its reluctance to enforce environmental regulations on the foreign petroleum companies operating in the area. At the peak of his non-violent campaign, he was tried by a special military tribunal for allegedly masterminding the murder of Ogoni chiefs at a pro-government meeting, and hanged in 1995 by the military dictatorship of General Sani Abacha. His execution provoked international outrage and resulted in Nigeria's suspension from the Commonwealth of Nations for over three years. Biography Early life Kenule Saro-Wiwa was born in Bori, near Port-Harcourt, Nigeria on 10 October 1941. He was the son of Chief Jim Wiwa, a forest ranger who held a title in the Nigerian chieftaincy system, and his third wife Widu. He officially changed his name to Saro-Wiwa after the Nigerian Civil War. He was married to Maria Saro Wiwa. His father's hometown was the village of Bane, Ogoniland, whose residents speak the Khana dialect of the Ogoni language. He spent his childhood in an Anglican home and eventually proved himself to be an excellent student. He received primary education at a Native Authority school in Bori, then attended secondary school at Government College Umuahia. A distinguished student, he was captain of the table tennis team and amassed school prizes in History and English. On the completion of his secondary education, he obtained a scholarship to study English at the University of Ibadan. At Ibadan, he plunged into academic and cultural interests, he won departmental prizes in 1963 and 1965 and worked for a drama troupe. The travelling drama troupe performed in Kano, Benin, Ilorin and Lagos and collaborated with the Nottingham Playhouse theater group that included a young Judi Dench. He briefly became a teaching assistant at