Pelumi Folajimi’s The Trial of Ken Saro–Wiwa: An Enactment of Resistance and Activism

Pelumi Folajimi, in The Trial of Ken Saro–Wiwa (2025) dramatizes the activism of Ken Saro–Wiwa, a famous Nigerian writer and Ogoni’s environmental activist. To be clear, Folajimi’s play is not a celebration of Saro–Wiwa as a sole fighter but as a collaborative revolutionary and activist. Saro–Wiwa, in Folajimi’s enactment, is not an isolated activist but one who fights along with other Ogoni revolutionaries and fighters. It is not surprising, therefore, that, in his play, Folajimi repeatedly emphasizes the commitment and travails of the society of the Ogoni people and the ‘‘Ogoni Nine,’’ Saro–Wiwa and eight other inmates. In his Preface to the play published by Pan-African University Press, Chris Dunton describes The Trial of Ken Saro–Wiwa as a play which epitomizes ‘‘The audacity of Folajimi’s dramaturgy’’ and Roy Doron celebrates the play as Folajimi’s medium of dramatizing the parable of Ken Saro–Wiwa’s struggle. Doron observes that Saro–Wiwa’s struggle epitomizes ‘‘a never–ending human struggle.’’ Perhaps the human and global posture of Saro–Wiwa’s struggle justifies Folajimi’s parallel positioning of Saro–Wiwa’s activism and trial with the trials and travails of global figures such as Socrates, Galileo, Jesus Christ, Nelson Mandela, and the biblical Joseph, apart from Martin Luther King Jr. and Dedan Kimathi of the Kenyan colonial struggles. Folajimi globalizes the struggle and activism of Saro–Wiwa who, in Folajimi’s dramaturgy, becomes a companion of global figures who made history and broke records.

Folajimi, in his characteristic dramaturgical brilliance, sets the first scene of the play on November 10, 1995; the historical day that Saro–Wiwa was executed by the General Sani Abacha’s government. The execution of Saro–Wiwa and the other members of the ‘‘Ogoni Nine’’ is a culmination of the series of trials, at the end of which Saro–Wiwa and his fellow Ogoni activists are unjustly and dishonestly declared guilty of incitement of the murder of four Ogoni chiefs. It appears, as demonstrated in Folajimi’s play, that the government of Nigeria had deliberately utilized the murder of the chiefs, by unidentified persons, as an occasion to get back at Saro–Wiwa who had exerted his power and resources to stage a fight, a protest, against Shell and the unjust Nigerian government which had inflicted economic and environmental injustice on the people of Ogoniland whose farmlands, rivers, and entire environment have been polluted and destroyed by the combined exploitation of both Shell and the Nigerian government.

Farmer I: You know Ken?

Farmer II: Kenule Beeson Saro–Wiwa.

Farmer I: He is calling for a mass protest.

Farmer II: A mass protest?

Farmer I: A mass protest against Shell and the Nigerian government.

Farmer II: And the purpose of the protest?

Farmer I: To resist the exploitation and marginalization of the Ogoni people.

Folajimi dramatises different protest scenes where Saro–Wiwa fights along with the members of the Ogoni community. Their protest is a fight against the injustice of the Nigerian government and Shell. The tyrannical government of General Sani Abacha gets back at Saro–Wiwa who, along with eight other Ogoni activists, are apprehended and incarcerated, fraudulently tried and dubiously found guilty and executed.

Against the backdrop of existentialism, Folajimi shows us the hero in Ken Saro–Wiwa. Saro–Wiwa, in Folajimi’s historical tragedy, is not a sole hero. He is a member of a collective effort at combating injustice in Ogoniland. While Saro–Wiwa is condemned to death, his legacy and impacts remain lively and generative. In Folajimi’s tragic drama, the last words of Saro–Wiwa are ‘‘Lord, take my soul but the struggle continues.’’ Truly, the struggle of Ken Saro–Wiwa and his fellow Ogoni activists continues. The Ogoni people and the people of Niger Delta have continued to fight against the environmental injustice they endure. While the flesh of Saro–Wiwa is condemned and destroyed, his spirit remains ever lively and productive and his legacy remains a light which brightens the fight and struggle of the remnants of Ogoni.