In the April edition of New English Review, Theodore Dalrymple remembers his friend, Ken Saro-Wiwa, and his hanging by the brutal and corrupt Nigerian military dictatorship in power at the time.

Saro-Wiwa, along with eight others, was hanged, apparently at the fifth attempt, so that he is said to have said that, in this country, they can’t even hang someone properly. In the aftermath, there was much moral outrage and talk of economic sanctions against Nigeria; I wrote an article that still troubles my conscience, in which I argued against such sanctions even though Saro-Wiwa was my friend.