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437
Drums Before Guns
<p>Before we had tanks, we had talking drums. </p><p>Before we had political parties, we had praise singers</p><p>—men and women who carried history in their mouths and made memory melodic. </p><p>Nobody had to threaten anyone to listen. </p><p><br/></p><p><br/></p><p>The sound travelled through forest and savannah zones, </p><p>across villages that spoke different languages, </p><p>and everybody understood one thing: </p><p><br/></p><p>Something important is being said. <br/></p><p>This is the power Nigeria forgets it has. </p><p><br/></p><p>I know this because I have sat in the other silence for years—the one that falls on my family’s living room when the news delivers another story about insecurity. Weapons drawn. Troops deployed. Threats neutralized. My mother’s hands pause mid-prayer. My father’s jaw tightens. </p><p><br/></p><p>The nation again is being discussed in a language of force.</p><p><br/></p><p>We have spoken this language for so long that we have forgotten we ever had another one. </p><p><br/></p><p>But the drum is older than the gun. And unlike the gun, the drum never needed to wound to be heard. </p><p><br/></p><p><br/></p><p>You cannot scare people into loving their country and you definitely cannot arrest your way to unity. </p><p><br/></p><p>Now ask yourself: has a rifle ever made you want to create something beautiful and call it Nigerian?</p><p><br/></p><p>No.<br/></p><p><br/></p><p>But a bullet has made me bury something beautiful and call it Nigerian.</p><p><br/></p><p>They call it insecurity like it’s the weather.<br/></p><p>Like it will pass if we wait long enough.</p><p>But that is not what it is.</p><p>Insecurity is a father who leaves for work</p><p>and returns in a body bag his children cannot recognize.</p><p><br/></p><p><br/></p><p>Ore has been mapped out of existence.</p><p>Aisha has been buried alive by borders drawn by men who never bled here.</p><p>Oma has held a phone to her ear and heard a cousin say “they are coming!” and then nothing.</p><p>Just the sound of a country swallowing itself.</p><p><br/></p><p><br/></p><p>I have survived so much “Nigeria” that I no longer know if I am a citizen or a witness statement.</p><p><br/></p><p>Before we had guns, we had drums that told the truth.<br/></p><p>Now the drums are buried.</p><p>And the guns are naming our children.</p><p><br/></p><p><br/></p><p><br/></p>
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