Twenty Ten Twenty

20-10-20

As the cold bullets pierced through my feeble melanin skin, knocking my weak hands as I waved my flag of protection- a talisman that was dead on arrival.

It was green, garnished with white trimmings but alas my blood was the finishing touch!

They shouted- Soro soke.. wèrè, why you dey disguise? But it was all an echo, it was not only null….It was null and void.

My life flashed before my eyes and it dawned on me at that moment:

I was killed by the bullets of men who were meant to protect me.

With my last breath, I sang slowly but surely an old tune I knew was long forgotten and it goes like this:

Our flag shall be a symbol
That truth and justice reign
In peace or battle honour
And this we count as gain
To pass unto our children
A banner without stain

But here I was, bleeding so slowly but surely on my national pride that was supposed to be without stain.

Make a promise to me today, that I wouldn’t become a forgotten memory, a relic stored in the museum of the forgotten.

Remember my name!

But do not bestow upon me any award or reward of any kind.

And kindly, don’t provoke my spirit to anger by immortalizing me along the Imo bank; with a 60ft statue that bares no footprint of how I lived.

And lastly I beg thee …no more one minute silence for me because silence was how the struggle was lost in the first place.

Forget me not.