Dr. Tom Mbeke-Ekanem was born in Ituk Mbang, Uruan, in Akwa Ibom State of Nigeria. He attended Government Secondary School at Afaha Eket between 1971 and 1975. In 1978 he left Nigeria for the United States, where he earned a bachelor of science degree in petroleum engineering from the University of Oklahoma in 1984. He returned to Nigeria and enlisted in National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) in 1987. In 1989 he returned back to the United States, where in 1991 he earned a master of science degree in industrial engineering from the University of Oklahoma. In 2009, he earned a doctorate degree in public administration from the University of La Verne in California. He is presently working as a regulatory engineer with the California Environmental Protection Agency (Cal-EPA) with expertise in water resources and quality control.
This book is primarily about the execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa, a Nigerian environmentalist. It also looks into the ethnic politics that pervades Nigeria since gaining independence in 1960. The politics of Africa's most populous nation, Nigeria, can only be understood in terms of her over 250 ethnic groups. The complexities are explained in the circumstances surrounding the deaths of MKO Abiola, a president-elect, and Ken Saro-Wiwa, an accomplished author, a playwright, and environmentalist.
Ethnic politics has pervaded Nigeria since the British colonial era when the northern Muslims and the southern Christians were amalgamated in 1914. The ensuing turmoil after independence in 1960 led to the Ibo-led military coup d'etat in 1966. The reprisal massacre of the Ibos triggered the Nigeria-Biafra civil war.
Following the war, the battle for ethnic dominance took a center stage with the seizure of the petroleum resources that belong to the minority ethnic groups and the subsequent annulment of presidential election result in June 1993.
Ken Saro-Wiwa, a fearless minority activist, had in 1990 emerged from the oil-producing region of Ogoni and set up organization to agitate for a safe environment and economic justice for his people.When his pleas were ignored, he took his message to the United Nations in New York and drew worldwide attention to the world's most polluted environment. To eliminate him, Saro-Wiwa and eight activists were falsely accused, arrested, and charged with murder and consequently executed by General Abacha's military tribunal. The book gives in detail the minute-by-minute trial and the gruesome judicial murder that was heard around the world.
To maintain ethnic hegemony, General Abacha devised schemes to succeed himself as a civilian president. His political opponents were either in prison, dead, or in exile. Two months to his scheduled election, General Abacha suddenly died at night in the midst of Indian prostitutes. A month later, MKO Abiola, the president-elect who was jailed by General Abacha, also died mysteriously in jail. Corruption of epic proportion and ethnic militias take over the nation.
