{"id":29552,"date":"2016-10-19T05:44:46","date_gmt":"2016-10-19T05:44:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/son-of-nigeria-s-ken-saro-wiwa-dies\/"},"modified":"2016-10-19T05:44:31","modified_gmt":"2016-10-19T05:44:31","slug":"son-of-nigeria-s-ken-saro-wiwa-dies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/son-of-nigeria-s-ken-saro-wiwa-dies\/","title":{"rendered":"Son of Nigeria&#8217;s Ken Saro-Wiwa dies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>{The son of renowned Nigerian environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, who was executed more than 20 years ago, has died in London.}<\/p>\n<p>Ken Saro-Wiwa Jr, 47, passed away after suffering a stroke, his family say.<br \/>\nHe was a journalist who became an adviser to three presidents.<\/p>\n<p>The 1995 execution of his father by a military government for leading protests against environmental degradation caused by the oil industry sparked global outrage.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>His execution after a secret trial under Gen Sani Abacha led to Nigeria being suspended from the Commonwealth.<\/p>\n<p>Noo Saro-Wiwa, sister of the late journalist, told the BBC:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;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.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Funeral arrangements are yet to be worked out, the family says.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Wiwa was first appointed in 2006 as a special adviser on peace and conflict resolution by former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo.<\/p>\n<p>He later served Mr Obasanjo&#8217;s successor, President Umaru Yar&#8217;Adua, as an adviser on international affairs and stayed on under President Goodluck Jonathan until he lost last year&#8217;s election.<\/p>\n<p>His willingness to work with the federal government marked him out as less militant than his father.<\/p>\n<p>But like his father, he was committed to the cause of the Ogoni people.<\/p>\n<p>In a 2015 opinion piece for the UK&#8217;s Guardian newspaper, he wrote that the effects of the oil pollution on Ogoniland had still not been cleared up:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If my father were alive today he would be dismayed that Ogoniland still looks like the devastated region that spurred him to action.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There is little evidence to show that it sits on one of the world&#8217;s richest deposits of oil and gas.&#8221;<\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-15842 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/_91980873_wiwa.jpg\" alt=\"Ken Saro-Wiwa Jr was a prominent journalist and became a presidential advisor\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>{The son of renowned Nigerian environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, who was executed more than 20 years ago, has died in London.} 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 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[249],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-29552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-bbc"],"bylines":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"contributors":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29552\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29552"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=29552"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=29552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}