IN ABEOKUTA, THE DEAD ARE COHABITING WITH THE LIVING — LITERALLY
For two weeks, investigative journalist ‘FISAYO SOYOMBO ‘travelled to the land of the dead’, spending extensive time at 12 government-owned mortuaries and cemeteries in Lagos, Ogun and Oyo states. His findings at the mortuaries include bribery and corruption among morgue attendants, indiscriminate stacking of corpses, decomposition of corpses, and unhealthy and substandard preservation of corpses. At the cemeteries, he discovered that remains are prone to exhumation soon after burial — although the super-rich, who can afford the multimillion naira cost of private cemeteries, are safe. For the poor, Nigeria is not one of the best countries to live in, yet it is also one of the worst places to die in, Soyombo writes.
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From the first floor of her house at Iyana Mortuary (meaning ‘the turning by mortuary’) in Abeokuta, Ogun State, Busola Orabiyi can see the nearby graveyard, owned and managed by the Cathedral of St. James African Church, Idi-Ape. The fencing is that low!
It is never a pleasant sight for her but she can cope in the daytime. At night, the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) member never opens her doors or windows even in times of power outage — ever since she was rewarded with a nightmare for opening her windows to let in fresh air.
“When I moved in, I didn’t really like the idea of living by a mortuary but I was pressed for housing so I thought I was only going to be walking past it,” she says.
“But I was wrong! There was power outage one day and you couldn’t possibly imagine my shock when I opened my window only to be confronted by the sight of dozens of whitish tombstones. I could not sleep for all of that night. It was nightmarish.
“Since then, my windows are always locked even in periods of power cut. The good news is that I’m here for just one year — that is if I stay long enough to last that time.”
Although the tombs were markedly overgrown by weeds, subsequent visits to other states showed that this was one of the better-looking non-private cemeteries in Ogun, Lagos and Oyo States.
ATAN CEMETERY SHOULD BE RECHRISTENED ATAN FOREST
Atan Cemetery, situated in Yaba, an eastern suburb of Lagos, is one of Nigeria’s oldest cemeteries — so old that no one alive or their progenitors was around when it was sited. But Atan, founded in 1868 on a 25-hectare piece of land at Yaba Local Government Area, is the perfect example of how not to run a cemetery.
The welcome to Atan is unpleasant. The first few opening rows of graves on the left are piles of refuse that would surely sicken the spirits of the dead. Where there are no waste paper and dried leaves, there are overgrown graves. In fact, there is a certain grave that has been overtaken by shrubs. Without the tombstones, the cemetery would easily pass for a forest.
According to one of the casual workers at the site, the cemetery is in such state because the fees for general and personal maintenance are separate.
“What government does is general maintenance,” he says. “The government will then decide where to maintain, and you may be unlucky that the maintained portion is not yours. But when you pay for personal maintenance, N3,500 per month, only your portion will be maintained.”
Same thoughts were expressed by the local government official conducting prospective clients round the facility.
“We will soon start clearing the bush. Tomorrow, I will use my car to go fetch the labourers who will clear the grass,” says Samuel, as he would later identify himself.
Asked why the cemetery was bushy in the first place, with government pocketing 60 percent of all payments, he says: “If you want your personal space to be clean, you can employ the boys to do it for you. Just look for one boy, give him N2,000 every month and the place will be so neat you won’t find a single dirt there.”
Temporary — call it interrupted — rest
Although the cheapest single-space vault costs N250,000, Samuel says a temporary space can be leased for N200,000. So what’s the difference between a permanent and temporary vaults?
“In temporary, no document, no anything!” Samuel explains. “You may come back to make it permanent but this has to be done within one month.”
What then happens if the deceased’s family does not return within a month? Samuel manages to evade the question. It didn’t matter in the end; a visitor to the cemetery first answered it 11 years ago before revalidating his answer last year.
After first visiting Atan in 2006, Waju Abraham wrote: In 2006, my friend, another only son lost his mother and I was his chief consoler… By the time we got to the burial spot, the grave had not been dug. Someone pulled ‘strings’ and things rolled into action. As they dug, I shuddered. The loose, soft earth was proof it was very fertile, but it revealed something else.
“Clumps of earth sprinkled with human bones hit the ground around us. Alas, it was someone else’s grave. Another tenant being evicted for not paying rent. My friend was disconsolate. I held him. Then after digging knee deep, they stopped and said ‘Oya, bring am!’ They were ready to bury and close up the earth’s mouth. WTF!
“This is not 6 feet!” my friend wailed.
“Oga, six feet Na length, no be depth!”
I remember getting home that night, and telling my diary (there was no Facebook then, or mobile internet) that when I retired to heaven, I’d like to be cremated. I’d like the ashes spread over places I’ve lived and loved. No! Don’t keep me in a sealed, airtight jar on the mantelpiece. Let me soar with the wind, and run with the rivulets that form when the rain falls on a typical summer’s day.
When he returned again to Atan in 2016, he was welcomed by further shock. Of the latter experience, he wrote: Atan must not be part of Lagos, because apparently Atan ti baje mehn. I saw at least three human skulls, one tibia, one badly chewed femur. Chai! I saw the Tommy boxer shorts that they buried somebody in. I saw what looked like the leathered torso of a corpse that was tired of stinking.
And to make things even worse, the guys who had to cover the grave demanded a tip -or else. The earth was still soft beneath my feet. Dark, languid, as if to say ‘Oga, I dey wait for you. To which I replied ‘Yo fada! No be now!’ I didn’t shed a single tear. I was too bone-jarred to care. Someone needs to do something about Atan cemetery.
One of the casual workers at the cemetery says no one needs to spend as much as N250,000 to bury a loved one. He leaves his phone number with the visitor, saying the finer details can be strung together on phone.
“Make everything N200,000,” he says to kick-start the haggling over a temporary space for the dead.
“No, no,” he is told. “If Samuel said I could get a temporary space for N200,000, why should I give you the same amount. Let’s have a deal for N80,000.”
After some more minutes of haggling on the phone, the two parties settle for N100,000. Nice deal it seems on the surface, but corpses buried in this manner end up like the “three human skulls, one tibia and one badly chewed femur” that assaulted Abraham’s sight.
To be continued
Source : International Centre for Investigative Reporting
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