“Preserve Your Father’s Legacy”, Ajibade Tells Wiwa’s Children

The children of the late founder of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) has a legacy to keep his memory through his works that are scared in circulation . This was the submission of the author of Jailed for Life and Executive Editor of TheNews magazine, Kunle Ajibade while speaking about the late activist, Ken Saro-Wiwa, whom he covered during his stint as journalist in the Abacha led junta; at a colloquium organised by the 17th Lagos Book & Art Festival, LABAF to honour the late activist.
Speaking on the theme,” Democracy and self determination; Democracy in self determination, chaired by Pa Fred Agbeyegbe, Mr Ajibade said the children of the late founder of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People(MOSOP ) has a legacy to keep his memory through his works. “ Ken published himself,except few of his works published abroad. Therefore, it is the responsibility of his family to preserve his legacy by making sure these books are reprinted. I don’t know why his family have not been able to reprint his works at this time to keep his memory.”
On the 20th year remembrance of Ken Saro-Wiwa, Ajibade said, “Remembering Ken, 20years after his death is like remembering the fact you should not be killing people whose argument you don’t agree with. See, when you look at other countries better than our own, and you check their history, you will see that their success is because they argued successfully among themselves.”
The media icon also added that,”His death brought a lot of improvement. If there was no improvement, you won’t have gathered all manner of agencies and parastatals to address the issue of injustice in the Niger Delta. You won’t also see government responding quickly to agitators. I mean real agitators getting response to solving the problems in that region. Because, when they killed Ken Saro-Wiwa, the whole world rose up.
On the legacy left by the late writer, TheNews editor stated that Ken will continue to be an inspiration to many even after his death. In his words, “The fact that the world rose up and agitated for his execution is a sense of accountability. But, there are other things we can account for; and that is the fact that Ken has been a lot of inspiration to people. Do you know these people, do you know the people he will inspire in future? And do you know a lot of people he will inspire through his works. So, there is a sense in which he has been a lot of inspiration, and will continue to be a source of inspiration.”
Also, speaking of his last encounter with KSW which was through a letter, Mr Ajibade said ,” I was in another prison, when he was hanged. So, the news left me a devastating experience as he had written to me through a writer, Dr. Tunde Fatunde of his worries about my imprisonment. Unfortunately, I was also worried about him.”