There was a time when stories lived among us, breathed with us, and grew with each telling. They weren't just words thrown together for amusement; they were living, evolving entities passed down from elders, their voices as rich as the land after rain. Some of these stories shaped who we are today, by explaining the world's mysteries before science gave them names. The tortoise was always cunning, but never wise enough to avoid his downfall. The spirits in the forest were both feared and revered. The gods were there, listening, sometimes punishing, sometimes rewarding. And then somehow the stories stopped coming. They faded, first as whispers, then as distant echoes, until they became relics of a past that no longer seemed too important.

It did not happen all at once. At first, it was simply a matter of preference. The old ways became something to laugh at, something to out grow. When satellite television began transmitting Hollywood fantasies directly into our living homes, a grandmother's tale about the river deity became less fascinating. The traditions we had held sacred—of trickster animals, vengeful spirits, and godlike warriors—began to seem puerile, relics of an ignorant age. We began to scoff at our own myths, labeling them as superstitious, while embracing foreign fantasies with open arms. The Greek gods were intriguing and the Norse myths were fascinating, but what about our own deities. Those were just backward beliefs. The erasure wasn’t just external—it was internal, a gradual loosening of the grip we once had on our own narratives.

The village square, once the heart of storytelling, has fallen silent. Where children once sat wide-eyed around a fire, filled with curiosity, hanging onto every word of an elder’s tale, is replaced now by the glow of phone screens illuminating faces in the dark. Conversations have become shorter, attention spans even shorter. A three-minute viral video carries more weight than a story that took hours to tell. The griots, the guardians of oral tradition, now find fewer ears willing to listen. The keepers of history, once the most respected voices in the community, have become figures of nostalgia—remembered, but rarely consulted. The art of listening, of waiting for the resolution of a story, of savoring each twist and turn, lost in a world that prioritizes speed over depth.

Yet, storytelling was never just for entertainment. It was our moral compass, our unwritten history books, and our method of preserving identity. Every proverb carried the weight of generations, and every fable functioned as a warning or a lesson. We knew instinctively that actions had consequences, that wisdom was greater than strength, and that greed would always lead to disaster—not because we read it in a textbook, but because we heard it in a story, over and over until it became a part of us. These stories were the foundation of our values. They instilled patience, resilience, caution, and wittiness. They warned us about betrayal, the dangers of making deals with the unseen, about the delicate balance of nature and the supernatural. When the stories stopped, so did something else: the willingness to learn through narrative, the ability to see the world through the eyes of those who came before us.

Modernity is not the villain here. Cultures must evolve in order to adapt to change. However, there is a distinction between evolution and erasure. The issue isn't that new stories have replaced old ones, but that we've abandoned the act of storytelling altogether. Even Nollywood, previously steeped in fairytales and mystical themes, has turned to urban dramas and Hollywood-inspired stories. Writers who once wove magic into their words now struggle to keep readers’ attention for more than a tweet. The oral tradition that held African cultures together is fading, as is the communal ethos that once defined us. It is not just the stories that are disappearing; it is also the settings in which they were told, the patience with which they were received with genuine curiosity, and the deep sense of belonging they produced. We're replacing them with fragments—fast, disposable content that entertains but doesn't linger, distracts but doesn't teach.

What happens to a people who forget their own stories? The loss extends beyond nostalgia. Stories were how we made sense of the world, how we found purpose in pain, how wisdom not taught in schools was passed on. Without them, we are left only with facts, devoid of the emotion and depth that made them meaningful. A list of historical dates is not as compelling as a tale of heroism and treachery. A moral code enforced by law is not as deeply ingrained as one learned through the rise and fall of a beloved character. It's one thing to be taught what's right and wrong; it's another to feel it through the course of a story, to see the repercussions unfold in ways that leave an imprint on the heart.

It’s easy to think storytelling is outdated, that it has no place in a fast-moving world. But stories are not just words—they are experiences, they are memory, they are connection. The irony is that even the most advanced forms of entertainment today—films, books, music—still rely on storytelling at their core. We binge-watch television series because we are drawn to narratives. We follow influencers because we are captivated by their personal stories. Yet, somehow, we have dismissed our own storytelling traditions as primitive, forgetting that they carried the same magic we now chase in digital form. The hunger for stories has not disappeared—it has simply been redirected. The question is: will we allow our own stories to be part of this new hunger, or will we let them die altogether?

There is still time to reclaim what we've lost. We may never return to the village square, but we can find new ways to share our stories. Parents can trade bedtime YouTube videos for folktales with deeper value. Writers can enrich modern storylines with African myth and legend. Filmmakers can embrace the supernatural without feeling obligated to sanitize it for Western validation. Musicians can embed ancestral narratives into their lyrics, keeping them alive through rhythm and melody. And, most importantly, we may learn to listen again—to slow down, pay attention, and let a story unfold without rushing to the end. It is not enough to say, "We used to have great stories." We must make room for them again, and make them as important to the present as they were to the past.

Because once a story is forgotten, it is lost forever. It does not sit in the archives, waiting to be revived when convenient. It disappears, taking with it the voices of people who once told it, the wisdom they hoped to pass down, and a piece of their identity. If we don't tell our own stories, someone else will, and they might not tell them correctly. The world does not stand still for those who lose their narratives—it moves on, leaving them as footnotes in someone else's history. And that is the real tragedy—not just that the stories fade, but that we don't even realize what we've lost until it's too late.

So, maybe it’s time we start telling stories again. Before there’s nothing left to tell. Before the echoes die out completely. Before we look around and realize that we have inherited a world that no longer remembers who we are.