SON OF NIGERIA'S KEN SARO-WIWA DIES
Ken Saro-Wiwa Jr, 47,
passed away after suffering a stroke, his family say.
He was a journalist
who became an adviser to three presidents.
The 1995 execution of
his father by a military government for leading protests against environmental
degradation caused by the oil industry sparked global outrage.
Saro-Wiwa Sr led the
Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (Mosop), which accused oil
multinational Shell of destroying the environment in his home region of
Ogoniland in south-eastern Nigeria.
His execution after a
secret trial under Gen Sani Abacha led to Nigeria being suspended from the
Commonwealth.
Noo Saro-Wiwa, sister
of the late journalist, told the BBC: "It is with great sadness that we
announce that Ken Saro-Wiwa Jr passed away suddenly. His family are devastated
and request privacy at this difficult time."
Funeral arrangements
are yet to be worked out, the family says.
Ken Saro-Wiwa was
first appointed in 2006 as a special adviser on peace and conflict resolution
by former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo.
He later served Mr
Obasanjo's successor, President Umaru Yar'Adua, as an adviser on international
affairs and stayed on under President Goodluck Jonathan until he lost last
year's election.
His willingness to
work with the federal government marked him out as less militant than his
father.
But like his father,
he was committed to the cause of the Ogoni people.
In a 2015 opinion
piece for the UK's Guardian newspaper, he wrote that the effects of the oil
pollution on Ogoniland had still not been cleared up.
"If my father
were alive today he would be dismayed that Ogoniland still looks like the
devastated region that spurred him to action.
"There is little
evidence to show that it sits on one of the world's richest deposits of oil and
gas."
A 2011 UN report said
Nigeria's Ogoniland region could take 30 years to recover fully from the damage
caused by years of oil spills. The study said complete restoration could entail
the world's "most wide-ranging and long-term oil clean-up".
It added that
communities faced a severe health risk, with some families drinking water with
high levels of carcinogens.
Shell has accepted
liability for two spills and said all oil spills were bad for Nigeria and the
company. READ MORE
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