Bob Dewar

« Remembrance Day: ... | Main | Awareness on HIV/AID... »

Tuesday 18 November, 2008

The services of Remembrance in Abuja and Lagos in recent days have been moving occasions.

Standing together in Abuja, the capital at the exact centre of this vibrant African power, home to 140 million people, it was striking to think that it was exactly 90 years ago that the First World War guns fell silent.

While we remember and honour those who have given their lives for the peace and freedom we enjoy in the UK today, there are so many young men and women who continue to serve right now in the cause of peace, including in Africa. Nigerian forces are in Darfur and Liberia for example.

I stood yesterday in another peaceful Commonwealth war grave cemetery, this time in Lagos, sharing the silence after the bagpiper and the bugle, both beautifully played. This was a cemetery with over 400 Commonwealth and other graves, the largest such concentration of the fallen from the Second World War in Nigeria. Military and civilians, young and old, British and Nigerian, Commonwealth and allied, stood together. Two of the small group of Nigerian veterans, proudly wearing their medals, had served with the UN in the Congo 'the first time round', as one of them explained to me. A group of children, smart in their school uniforms, stood not far from them. As we stood, the early morning heat was already intense in a tropical humidity, a tremendous contrast to that Sunday only seven days ago in Kano in the North. This country is so big. As the children stood silent, facing the wreaths on the cenotaph, a plane flew over. And the birds sang.