I had decided not to say a word about this issue again
The last time i spoke, some elders said I was insulting them and didn’t show respect to their highly revered Monarch and since I didn’t want a curse on my head I kept quiet, made the necessary apologies and started minding my business
But events around the Monument designed to memorialise the over 1,000 people that lost thier lives during the war is looking like vindicating me and casting a large cloud of shame on the people of Asaba.
When I visited the place, God knows I didn’t see anything to show a dignifying respect for these heroes by their descendants
The place was littered with overgrown weeds all over and it looked like just one kind place where people walked past or drove past without feeling the impact of what happened there
Compare this to the female Musuem in Ikot Abasi which was built to honor the amazons who lost their lives by jumping into the Imo River after their leader was shot – im doing a play MAKAMBA on this this Dec-then you will see that the Asaba people are joking
You cant even dare try to compare this with the various monuments and museums the litter Badagry which commemorates the slave trade of that era.
The slave trade and the War musuem commemorating the women riots which started in 1929 happened far deeper in history than the Asaba massacre and yet Asaba people cannot stand up as one to put down a befitting monument of musuem to mark this sad past in our history like Akwa Ibom people and Badagry people.
All we are hearing is reparations, FG to recognise the massacre happened and their elites trudging up and down the globe with the massacre as a banner while the spot it happened is home of mangy dogs and rodents
I was very very sad, when i now just found out that the monument itself has now been roped into a supremacy battle between a politician and an Individual who seems to have taken full control of the narrative surrounding the massacre
The whole massacre and its monument is now mired in politics and controversy and corruption with the ICPC, the Presidency being pettioned left right and centre
I really don’t care who is right or wrong all I care about is the fact that the Asaba people continue to fail us as the direct custidian of this national pain
All we see are individuals attempting to leverage the monument and story for personal aggradisement
Imagine’ playing politics with such a sensitive issue
If the Asaba people will not respect themselves, we will put finger in their eyes, I tell you
This 1,000 people cannot be killed again on the slab of avarice, personal ambition and utter wreck lessness in managing the affairs of the massacre
How will Federal Government who is even not officially recognising the Massacre now come and pay reparations or declare public holiday when the Asaba people themselves who lost fathers uncles, brothers and sons cannot by themselves even stand up and dignify their people who were draped and killed innocently.
If they are not careful, I will go to Uyo, buy land and erect a befitting monument and museum to dignify that dark cloud to the shame of its custodians
I have always said that the Asaba Massacre is a Nigerian tragedy that happened to have happened in Asaba and as such the Asaba people do not have the monopoly of its custodianship
If they continue playing politics with this story, we will move in and do right by those poor people who laid down their lives for one Nigeria.
The people are being massacred all over again and this is totally unacceptable and their blood will cry out in anger
Let me conclude and beg any Nigerian who thinks im being dramatic to just go and visit that site and if you come out impreseed come and slap me here and if what you see makes you feel like crying, then come wnd join hands and shout so that things can be done right
They are raising billions to build a befitting Palace and rightly so for their highly respected Monarch who I must say remains one of the last vestiges of royal dignity in Nigeria, so why cant they now raise a little bit more and do something more edifying at that site
Why wait for a rudderless politician to claim N450m from Government to put on a site that is allegedly now privately owned.
Mbok who can own a land where history happened and now use that land as collateral to collect money and now claim to have returned the money for whatever reason and now allegedly now donated the land to a political movement, if I am correct?
Im waiting to be beaten on this one. Im ready. Im really ready, one Asaba man should just get sufficiently angry enough to walk up to me and slap me on this matter.
This is a shame. Thank u
Duke of Shomolu
Last modified: May 19, 2026
