Why Do We Forget?

I remember exactly where I was, on the 11th Day of September 2001. The Americans haven’t allowed me to forget it.

I know that over 6 million Jews were exterminated by hitler, whose name I wouldn’t even humanize with a capital letter. The Jews have assured that nobody forgets it.

How many, remember the number of our brethren, taken away as slaves? How many remember, the long years of colonization?

I am aware that there are endangered animals all over our beautiful mother earth. But those who preach this, do not go to bed hungry.

They preach about global warming, from the comfort of their industrialized 1st world cocoons, whilst we grope about in the darkness of our continent.

I saw many in Nigeria, jesuing Charlie after Paris, yet Bama people were massacred unmourned by their own.

Accidental discharges abbreviates the lives of citizens, and few find the same outrage they readily called up on watching Black Lives Matter rallies on cable.

I was in Abuja, a visitor from the bubble of Lagos, the day after the Nyanyan bombing. Going about my business at the Federal parastatal I was visiting, the abnormality of the normalcy I found in the place, left me doubting the humanity of my fellow citizens.

So, yes, I remember where I was, on September 11, 2001. The damn Americans wouldn’t allow me to forget it….. But my people disown the lessons of their own history…. Change!!!

First published 11 September, 2016.