For 20-year-old Columbia University student named Bruce Mayrock of Westbury, New York who on May 29, 1969, set himself on fire in front of the United Nations Building in New York City to protest genocide in Biafra. He died the next day, May 30th, 1969.
He died for me.
Like so many others
He could’ve asked,
“What concerns me?”
But he didn’t.
He was moved by distended abdomen
Of the children of Biafra
Full of kwoshiokor
And our indifference.
He climbed down his Ivy League chair
Into the valley of the United Nations
Wrote on a large cardboard sign:
“You must stop the genocide, please.”
But nobody listened
Nobody stopped
Nobody paused
To hear the cries of the little children of Biafra
If I were born months before
If I were weaned from my mother’s breasts
I could’ve been one of those children
Whose pictures shamed the cover of Life.
He died for me.
He didn’t have to.
But he did
Because nobody listened
And nobody is listening, even now.
Rudolf Ogoo Okonkwo is the author of “This American Life Sef.”
END
This is sad. I, however, think Nnamdi Kanu is brainwashing and raising a different set of “Boko Haram suicide bombers”. Youngsters who kill themselves for another person’s cause.