By Omoniyi IBIETAN. My wish today is to write about Dele Giwa. It's three decades today Dele Giwa was murdered in a most gruesome fashi...
By Omoniyi IBIETAN.
My wish today is to write about Dele Giwa. It's three decades today Dele Giwa was murdered in a most gruesome fashion. A brilliant journalist whose style redefined Nigerian media landscape. Then, I was reflecting of how to celebrate Dele Giwa as well as mourn the passage of another great brother, Dr. Taiwo Oladokun, broadcaster, journalist and media scholar. Taiwo Oladokun was a man, whose every action towards me rekindled the true meaning of friendship.
Then, suddenly I received the confirmation of the transition of Ken Wiwa Jr., with whom I have had a long relationship dating back to my days in the Niger Delta both as a student leader and as a social entrepreneur, involved in practically all the theatres of resistance to variegated inhuman and degrading treatment against the people. A few times I met Ken in Ogoniland, most of the times through Patrick Naagbanton, the very first of my Ogoni brothers, then the Late Kingsley Kpea. Some other times in Port Harcourt...Agudama Street in D/LINE was both the secretariat of Secretariats as well as the rendezvous.
There's hardly any one intimately involved in the resistance struggles in the Niger Delta that did not visit 13 Agudama Street. Yea, that was the office of Environmental Rights Action (ERA). ERA was led by Nnimmo Bassey, Late Oronto Douglas, Uche Onyeaguocha, Jaye Gaskia...but it was home to all 'comrades', irrespective of circumstances of birth and existence.
Although the spirit of friendship and our brotherhood remained a fact of our lives, there was a disconnect, an interregnum in my interaction with Ken until 2006 when I was appointed Special Media Advisor to Frank Nweke II. Ken and I remained in touch after that reunion both in Nigeria and outside. The last point of physical contact was at the Landmark Events Centre, Victoria Island, earlier this year, where the Social Media Week, which Ken co-organised with another brother of mine, Oby Asika, held. Typically, we were both excited and we spoke about the event and quickly began to reflect on some writings. He told me about his upcoming book and we discussed quite a number of issues about our country on the sidelines of the well attended Social Media Week, the very first of its kind in our clime.
Ken was in and out but he made his own contributions to the struggle of the Nigerian people because he was involved and his spirit was always in Nigeria. As he had rightly captured, Ken lived in the shadows of his father. Many still find it difficult to ascribe some accomplishments to him in the context of the struggles of the people of the Niger Delta, as if it suffices to just see him as Ken Saro-Wiwa's son. Yet, Ken wrote a lot and beautifully too the Niger Delta. Through the instrumentality of the pen he brought to the fore and in constitutive perspectives the plight of people of the region.
A great listener with his trademark smile, Ken had friends across Nigeria and he was an unusually kind person, he was even kind to the 'enemies'. Ken hardly held grudges, always calm and at peace - perhaps the reason he did so much almost effortlessly. Like all death of a loved one, Ken's death, just as that of Taiwo Oladokun, and that of Dele Giwa three decades ago, is painful. Very painful.
Rest in peace brothers. SLEEP ON...
My wish today is to write about Dele Giwa. It's three decades today Dele Giwa was murdered in a most gruesome fashion. A brilliant journalist whose style redefined Nigerian media landscape. Then, I was reflecting of how to celebrate Dele Giwa as well as mourn the passage of another great brother, Dr. Taiwo Oladokun, broadcaster, journalist and media scholar. Taiwo Oladokun was a man, whose every action towards me rekindled the true meaning of friendship.
Then, suddenly I received the confirmation of the transition of Ken Wiwa Jr., with whom I have had a long relationship dating back to my days in the Niger Delta both as a student leader and as a social entrepreneur, involved in practically all the theatres of resistance to variegated inhuman and degrading treatment against the people. A few times I met Ken in Ogoniland, most of the times through Patrick Naagbanton, the very first of my Ogoni brothers, then the Late Kingsley Kpea. Some other times in Port Harcourt...Agudama Street in D/LINE was both the secretariat of Secretariats as well as the rendezvous.
There's hardly any one intimately involved in the resistance struggles in the Niger Delta that did not visit 13 Agudama Street. Yea, that was the office of Environmental Rights Action (ERA). ERA was led by Nnimmo Bassey, Late Oronto Douglas, Uche Onyeaguocha, Jaye Gaskia...but it was home to all 'comrades', irrespective of circumstances of birth and existence.
Although the spirit of friendship and our brotherhood remained a fact of our lives, there was a disconnect, an interregnum in my interaction with Ken until 2006 when I was appointed Special Media Advisor to Frank Nweke II. Ken and I remained in touch after that reunion both in Nigeria and outside. The last point of physical contact was at the Landmark Events Centre, Victoria Island, earlier this year, where the Social Media Week, which Ken co-organised with another brother of mine, Oby Asika, held. Typically, we were both excited and we spoke about the event and quickly began to reflect on some writings. He told me about his upcoming book and we discussed quite a number of issues about our country on the sidelines of the well attended Social Media Week, the very first of its kind in our clime.
Ken was in and out but he made his own contributions to the struggle of the Nigerian people because he was involved and his spirit was always in Nigeria. As he had rightly captured, Ken lived in the shadows of his father. Many still find it difficult to ascribe some accomplishments to him in the context of the struggles of the people of the Niger Delta, as if it suffices to just see him as Ken Saro-Wiwa's son. Yet, Ken wrote a lot and beautifully too the Niger Delta. Through the instrumentality of the pen he brought to the fore and in constitutive perspectives the plight of people of the region.
A great listener with his trademark smile, Ken had friends across Nigeria and he was an unusually kind person, he was even kind to the 'enemies'. Ken hardly held grudges, always calm and at peace - perhaps the reason he did so much almost effortlessly. Like all death of a loved one, Ken's death, just as that of Taiwo Oladokun, and that of Dele Giwa three decades ago, is painful. Very painful.
Rest in peace brothers. SLEEP ON...
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