**Nigeria Killed Her Sun—Now She Wants to Crown the Ashes**
Listen up, my people—the truth’s about to drop, and I don’t sugarcoat.
Thirty years ago, Nigeria committed political heresy in broad daylight. The military boot stamped out the greatest moral flame the Niger Delta ever lit. They executed Ken Saro-Wiwa—a poet with a pen sharper than any politician’s tongue—and now, three decades later, the same Nigeria whispers apologies into history’s ears. Too little, too late? Or the opening bars of a long-overdue reckoning?
Let’s set the record straight right out the gate: Nigeria didn’t just kill a man on November 10, 1995. She stabbed a bleeding conscience in the chest. Ken Saro-Wiwa and the Ogoni Nine weren’t just activists—they were human barricades standing against the armored greed of oil corporations and the regime that greased their wheels. And when you point fingers at power, you’d best be ready for the bullet. Or the noose. Ken got the noose.
But now, look who’s playing revisionist historian. In the year of our Lord 2024, Nigeria suddenly remembers that Ken Saro-Wiwa was a national hero. The same nation that silenced him is now singing his praise. How convenient. It’s like the arsonist showing up with a bucket of water after the house is ashes.
The Nigerian government’s recent proclamation, dripping in diplomatic perfume, calls for Saro-Wiwa’s “posthumous exoneration” and crafts a memorial halo around his name. But let’s call this charade what it is: political laundry. Wash the blood, polish the image, then strike a pose at the international forgiveness fashion show. Because history, my friends, has gone digital, and Nigeria’s rulers can no longer mute the angry opera of injustice with a switch of the state broadcaster.
You want satire? Here’s one: The same State that broke his spirit, hung his body, erased his dignity, and branded him a criminal… now calls him a visionary.
What next? A ₦5,000 note with his face on it? Don’t tempt these folks—they’ll print it and forget to pay pensioners the same week.
Let’s break it down for the keyboard warriors in the back: Ken Saro-Wiwa led a nonviolent campaign against Shell and the Nigerian government for systematically poisoning Ogoniland. He exposed the crude truth (pun fully intended): Nigeria had sold her children’s future for oil barrels and backdoor dollars. And what did he get in return? A closed trial, kangaroo courtroom, and a noose faster than you can say “military tribunal.”
Now that international pressure’s rewriting the story, Nigeria wants to play the enlightened repenter. But apology without accountability is just eloquent hypocrisy. Until there’s action—reparations for the Ogoni, names cleared not just in speech but in law, and the oil giants held to account—it’s just another TikTok apology from the nation that gaslit the globe.
But here’s where it gets strategic. Nigeria knows perception is power. They see the global tide shifting. Young people are restless, old sins are resurging, and international investors ask funny little questions like, “What happened to that Ken fellow again?” So now, the state performs its penance, hoping the world swipes left on its darker history.
But Mr. 47 doesn’t forget—and neither should you.
Let this be a lesson to the loudmouths of now. Speak truth to power and you might get silenced. But echo long enough, and the halls of history might still ring with your name. Saro-Wiwa’s pen didn’t die—it became a sword. And if Nigeria wants his forgiveness, the price is justice—not platitudes and photo ops.
So here we stand, thirty years on, staring into the mirror Nigeria holds up to her own face. And all I see, my friends, is the outline of a sun that was murdered at dawn—now sketched back into the sky by the very hand that snuffed it out.
The game’s on, and I play to win.
– Mr. 47
