By Thomas Danjuma Abu
Some years ago, I visited Nanjing, China, walking through the Massacre Memorial Hall, the Ming Xiaoling Mausoleum, and the Nanjing Museum. Names etched in stone, artifacts preserved with reverence, and the silence that demanded reflection—all whispered a lesson: a culture that honours its dead preserves its soul. These were people who lived, who sacrificed, and whose memory continues to teach the living.
Across history, cultures have remembered those who die answering the call of tradition:
Japan, 1703: Forty-seven samurai died for honour; their graves at Sengaku-ji Temple remain sacred.
Ancient Greece, Olympia: Deaths during sacred games were immortalised in stone and story.
India, Prayagraj, 1954: Pilgrims killed at the Kumbh Mela are remembered in ghats and ritual.
Africa: Zulu warriors, Ashanti custodians, Tiv and Yoruba cultural participants are preserved in songs, shrines, and monuments.
These examples show a timeless truth: when death meets culture, memory must live. Sacrifice is never lost if we remember it.
This truth became painfully real in Nasarawa Eggon Local Government Area, Nasarawa State, on Sunday evening, 28th December 2025. At least four young Eggon people—three men and a lady—were killed when a truck rammed into a crowd during the Annual Ame Wo Ba Eggon (AWBE) Cultural Festival, held at the Eggon Community Secondary School, the Venice of the festival. Tragically, one of the survivors later passed away. RIP Eggon Heroes.
They did not die in recklessness—they came out to celebrate culture, honour tradition, and answer a sacred call. The Eggon cultural dance is not entertainment—it is memory in motion, identity in rhythm, pride in sound. Meet an Eggon man, and you will see devotion to culture as deep as a devout Christian’s faith.
These young men and the lady are martyrs of culture. Like the samurai, Olympians, pilgrims, and African custodians before them, their names and sacrifice deserve recognition—through memorials, named sites, or ritual memory.
An African elder once said:
“A culture that forgets its fallen custodians prepares the grave of its own memory.”
Recognition is not sentimental—it is the way a people survive in memory and spirit.
For the Eggon nation, the question is simple: will history remember them, or let silence claim them?
When the drumbeat fell silent that day, it was not an end. It was a call—for memory, for honour, and for inspiration.
RIP Eggon Heroes.
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