I struggled to find a suitable topic for this month (I promised to write more on my birthday this year). I initially thought about writing about why I think the British are the wittiest people and then I thought about writing about a perspective on good news and bad news. I started both articles and struggled to flesh out both and then I settled on another topic -“Are you a wicked person? An analysis of Nice, Good & wicked. The article was actually coming good until this morning when I saw a tweet that changed my mood and my thoughts on what I should write. The news was “24 killed in Farmers/Herdsmen clash”.
Growing up, as you may know by now, I was always reading and soon enough I got fascinated with the characters in the stories I read. When I read about a character in a newspaper or comic book, I started researching other interesting things they may have done or achieved, where they grew up, had written a book and what did they do when they were younger or took a different path. I was drawn to the pre-stories and backstories. The main story/event didn’t hold as much excitement for me, everyone knew those.
I wanted to know what came before. I wanted to know the history of every person I found exciting, every TV character that killed a role, the president, my fav comic characters, or a writer I just finished their novel. I wanted to know what happened before and how they were formed. I knew Batman Origins, wolverine origins, How Chinua Achebe grew up, and the backstories of the various Nigerian coups. History fascinated me.
This also was a way for me to dive into the world of people and tried to imagine the lens from their beginning. I have always been withdrawn about showing my emotions; I can speculate why, but that is another story for another day. But reading someone’s history made me feel connected, I discovered empathy as a word and a feeling when I read about these stories, and in many ways, I could find myself daydreaming about what they encountered and maybe their experiences. It was a way for me to connect. To feel what they felt.
One of the vivid stories I remember reading in a daily newspaper was the Sosoliso crash. The particular piece was about the victims, most of who were children. The story described most of the victims, the classes the students were in, how they boarded the flight, and the aspirations of some of them. The article mentioned others who lost their lives, their pictures filled the papers. Pictures of them smiling, being happy. Pictures that didn’t look like the pain of their final moments. I didn’t know anyone on the flight but I remember shedding tears just reading that article. In the days after I would search for more news on the post-crash analysis. How were the survivors doing? What were the parents saying? how were they coping? It wasn’t just me, there was commentary everywhere on the news and the concern was genuine and the mood of everyone was palpable.
I grew up in Nigeria where empathy was still in the soul of the country. It wasn’t just this incident too. In 2011, a Christmas day bomb blast in Madalla and some parts of Jos. Everyone was concerned and I remember the picture of the then President, Goodluck Jonathan, hands under his Chin as he visited the site a few days later. The victims of the Bomb blast were identified and were named. The nation mourned and empathy was something that was more than a word. There were vigils in most places and the church released the names of the victims. Some Newspapers carried it.
Thirteen years have passed, and we're left with a country that has lost its soul. Day after day, the killings have become mere statistics, and people with lives tragically cut short have become mere numbers. Every day, I scroll through Twitter and see headlines like "Herdsmen kill 24 in Benue", "9 killed in Imo", "24 burnt to death in tanker explosion", "18 killed in Kaduna clash", and on some days, the numbers are atrocious to even mention. These numbers were lives - people with aspirations, dreams, and hopes for the future - all reduced to numbers. The reports do not even mention any names, just numbers.
We need backstories, we need exposes on the people’s lives cut short by wanton violence. How did they live? What were their aspirations? How did they smile when someone called them their nickname? Did their eyes light up? Did they have a funny dimple? How did they live? What did they hope for? What could have been for them? What is the cost of their lives?
One of the reasons why End SARS was beautiful to me was that people called names. There was a candlelight procession, and their lives actually mattered. They had stopped being SARS statistics, and their loved ones told their stories. Lives need to matter. People cannot just be numbers. We need to bring back the memorials, the processions, we need to remember the dates, and we need to make sure justice is served. Lives should matter.
Sometimes I want to excuse it. Nigeria's culture of shoulder-shrugging at everything may be a coping mechanism for our suffering, and a crumbling society may be the cause. Maybe there is no longer any shock value. Maybe we have come to accept that lives do not matter here, but in the end, we have created a numb society. A society that kills its people and forgets about them. If we cannot get justice, we can at least not forget.
Every time we see numbers off these incidents, remember that they aren't just statistics. Spare a thought, and try not to lose your soul to a society that has buried its own soul. I do not come bearing solutions (maybe for another time), as I myself have become numb to it. I struggle to spare a thought and I constantly have to pinch myself. This is just to remind us that when we scroll, we should not forget that people are not just numbers. And where we can contribute to making sure that we remember not to forget. Light a candle, organize where you are, and try to save your own soul from numbness.
Lives should matter.
Footnote: This is a link to an article showing how we treat our memorial sites. Who can help us?