Ken Saro-Wiwa was a prominent Nigerian author, activist and television producer. He garnered attention by leading a nonviolent campaign against the multinational petroleum industry. That industry recklessly dumped petroleum waste in Saro-Wiwa’s home region, the Nigerian delta, which gave rise to severe environmental damage.

Saro-Wiwa was born on 10 October 1941 into a prominent Ogoni family. As a child, he demonstrated a talent for scholarship and, upon completing his secondary schooling at Government College Umuahia, he won a scholarship to read English at the University of Ibadan.

He taught briefly at the University of Lagos after graduating in 1965. But he soon left that position to pursue a bureaucratic career, and served as a federal administrator for the Bonny Island oil terminal. Nigeria experienced a civil war between 1967 and 1970, and during the conflict, Saro-Wiwa supported the government’s goal of preventing the state of Biafra from seceding. He gained an appointment as the commissioner for education in the Rivers State as a reward for his support.

He left government service in 1973 because he advocated greater autonomy for the Ogoni people. But he achieved considerable success in that decade in a variety of commercial ventures in real estate and retail. In the 1980s, though, he shifted his focus from business to television production, writing and journalism. He wrote a satirical television series, Basi & Company, which looked at looked at the lives of gang members in Lagos. The series was reportedly the most popular television series in Africa in its day. He also published books such as Sozaboy, and Forest of Flowers, and wrote a regular column for the Lagos Times. He managed to gain an audience beyond Nigeria due to his newspaper writing.

Saro-Wiwa served in one presidential administration in the late 1980s. But his service did not last for long and by the end of the decade he had come to believe that corruption was an entrenched feature of Nigeria’s successive military regimes and that that unfortunate state of affairs could not be challenged from within the existing political structure.

In 1990, he helped found the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP). He also wrote the Ogoni Bill of Rights and worked with Greenpeace International. He became the principal opposition leader in Nigeria. And MOSOP was one of the most visible groups that stood in opposition to economic exploitation of Nigeria’s oil resources, and the concomitant environmental fallout.

But his position atop the oppositional hierarchy was far from secure. MOSOP divided into competing factions. Some people within the fold advocated and resorted to violence. And some Ogoni tribal leaders believed in ongoing negotiation with international oil companies. So he found himself between people with irreconcilable approaches.

On 21 May 1994, four people who opposed Saro-Wiwa were killed in an attacked orchestrated by a group affiliated with MOSOP. Saro-Wiwa had typically decried the use of violence. But he was arrested and tried by a Nigerian military court all the same along with eight other people. The defendants were referred to as the Ogoni Nine. Saro-Wiwa was sentenced to death. And despite international protestation regarding the unfairness of the procedure, he was executed by hanging on 10 November 1995 before he could appeal his conviction.

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  • Abraxiel
    ·
    1 year ago

    Ok, here's some of what I consider quality of play and vanilla+ mods:

    Harmony - a resource for other mods
    Hugslib - a resource for other mods
    Cherry picker - lets you (mostly) pick and choose stuff from vanilla and mods that you want to show up
    Vanilla expanded framework - dependency for VE mods
    Geological landforms - cool features for your maps
    Biome transitions - maps can mix biome features based on adjacency
    Wall light - lights on walls
    ReGrowth (any/all) - biome expansion, new biomes and more stuff for vanilla biomes
    Camera+ - more zoom in and out
    Windows - windows
    Underground power conduits - lets you hide power conduits
    Door mat - reduces filth
    P-music - adds more music, pretty good and fits in very well
    Quality colors - color-codes quality for stuff
    Color coded mood bars - color-codes colonist mood
    Replace stuff - lets you order walls, furniture, et al. to be replaced with a different version easily
    Share the load - lets more pawns bring stuff to construction sites
    Vanilla texture expanded - variations - different graphics for some stuff
    Character editor - if you want to change your pawns or starting stuff (once you get a feel for things - this mod lets you cheat a lot of stuff)
    Locks - lock doors, prevent animals, visitors, etc. from going through certain doors
    Trading spot - keep visiting traders in a certain area (e.g. no muffalos in your dining hall)
    Zitools object seeker - simple search map for stuff
    Dubs bad hygeine - more than vanilla+, but pretty fun. Adds plumbing, shitters, showers and more HVAC stuff - consider after you get a feel for things
    Vanilla furniture expanded - more furniture
    Vanilla furniture expanded - Architect - more options for structures
    Vanilla base generation expanded - more variety in sites to visit
    Planning extended - more options for planning stuff, lets you hide its plans
    Pick up and haul - makes pawns more efficient at carrying stuff. This one will affect the balance somewhat, but it's popular for a reason.

    I haven't listed all dependencies for these, so be sure to check each mod page. All these mods are available through steam workshop I think, some are available on github. If you don't have the game on steam, you can use https://ggntw.com/steam and just copy paste the url.

    Some mods will have been continued by different authors to keep up with game updates, so check which game versions are supported and search for "[name] continued" if they aren't up to date.

    There's so many more, of course, but this is maybe a manageable set to start with. After this, look over the Vanilla Expanded suite and see if there's anything in there you like the look of. Then consider one of the big combat mods like Combat extended (not compatible with everything) or Yayo's (less of an overhaul, generally more compatible).

    If you want dinos, Biomes! Prehistoric will give you that.

    There's a big list of neolithic mods I pulled from for my current playthrough here: https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=2981044540 I wouldn't recommend going through this until you've spent some time with the game, though.