My attitude to funeral services is pivoted on a Yoruba saying that burying the dead is the most important thing and that everything else is just noisemaking
By Olukorede Yishau
Celebrate me, now when I dey alive
Appreciate me, now when I dey alive
No be say when I leave this life
You go dey fake am for my wife
Celebrate me, now when I dey alive
Appreciate me, now when I dey alive
No be say when I leave this life
You go dey fake am for my back
Gimme-gimme, wetin I deserve
If I suppose dey, no put me for reserve
No go wait ’til I kpai
Before you gimme meat pie
—Patoranking
Dr. Onyeka Nwelue, poet, novelist, essayist, publisher, and filmmaker, is at home with taking controversial stands on issues. He believes the concept of referring to Africans and people of African descent as Black is a misnomer because, rightly so, their skin is not black—some of them are even fair in complexion. He also doesn’t believe Caucasians are White because, rightly so too, their skin is not the white we were taught right from our cradle. For his stand on this issue, he has faced backlashes but, like a stubborn goat, he has refused to give up and he will only give up when he is six feet below and interred in an Oxford cemetery when his time is up.
When people’s times are up, funeral services are held for them, where people dress gaily, get drunk on alcohol, eat free, sumptuous meals, and merry, most times, on money borrowed or saved over a long period of time. This is another issue about which Dr. Nwelue is passionate. Years before his father passed, his position on elaborate burial was public knowledge. He shared it in tweets, Facebook postings, Instagram posts, and elsewhere. His father died some months back and was buried a few weeks ago. Nwelue, as agreed with his father, didn’t attend the burial. That is not all. In the last few weeks, he has taken on his father’s people for what he considers exploitations associated with funeral rites.
Celebrated writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie had her own issue with the Catholic Church over the refusal to bury the dead because they didn’t contribute financially to the church. Unlike Chimamanda whose approach was ‘civil’, Nwelue’s has been nothing but militant. His anger seethes through every of his post. In a post on October 20, Dr. Nwelue tweeted: “The kind of energy my people invested in burying my father, I never saw it when he was alive. People expected me to be grateful to them for killing cows, cooking rice, and wearing aso-ebi, to give him a befitting burial. People who hadn’t seen him or called him in years. Mtchew.” He has another instructive tweet: “When someone dies in Igboland, people will travel thousands of miles to pay ‘final respect’ to someone they never cared about when alive. I have seen it happen firsthand. If you need money now that you are alive, you won’t get it until you have died.”
He also has this caustic one: “Dear African parents, make sure you leave some money behind for your children so that when you die, they will muse it and do that your stupid ‘befitting burial’ for you. You can’t be poor and ask them to kill cows when you die, when you didn’t have farthing.’
Parents who do not have farthing tell their children and family of the kind of burial they want when they are dead. It matters not to them that these are people struggling, and not living. And, like an average African, kids whose parents tell this kind of thing considers them sacrosanct. They see it as their ‘last wish’ which must be obeyed.
My attitude to funeral services is pivoted on a Yoruba saying that burying the dead is the most important thing and that everything else is just noisemaking. Some days ago, I had a chat with a friend whose father has been dead and buried for months, but his children and family members are still planning a ‘final burial’. What ‘final burial’ means is an elaborate party, where friends, foes and those in-betweens are invited to come and wine and dine to ‘celebrate the life of the deceased’. These ‘final burials’ are sometimes held in big football pitches, large halls, or on the street after a permit has been obtained from the local government to shut down the street from vehicular movement. The renting of the halls does not come cheap, the football fields are pretty expensive and the permit from the local government is not free of charge. The drinks, the food, the aso-ebi, the tables and chairs at the venue, the security guards, and so many things around the event are victims of the commercialisation of death. Like the friend I was speaking about, funding these expenses are difficult. Most times people who find it difficult to fund the education of their children and give them the basic things of life forced themselves into debt all in the name of giving their father or mother or brother or sister or aunt a befitting burial. And months after, they are still in debt to the persons who supplied drinks, to the caterers, to the textile traders and so many other people.
In some extreme cases, bodies are left in the morgue for months while the children are raising money for a ‘befitting burial’. There are instances where the children even either have to build a house from the scratch or complete the one being built by the deceased in the village before the burial will hold. Town unions, community associations and religious bodies even help to add to the burdens of those left behind by the deceased. I have even seen instances of overseas parties by children living abroad for their parents who died in Nigeria. I first read it in Chika Unigwe’s ‘On Black Sisters Street’. Now, I have seen non-fictional ones.
My final take: I do not believe in elaborate funeral services, I do not believe in keeping people in the morgue for months, I do not believe in golden caskets, and I do not believe in immersing yourselves in debts all in the name of giving the deceased a befitting burial. No burial is more befitting than covering the body with sand six feet below or cremating the body. I believe in burying the dead immediately except in special cases. Like Patoranking, I believe we should celebrate, appreciate people and give them what they deserve when they are alive and not fake it at their back.
• Yishau is a newspaper columnist and author of ‘In The Name of Our Father’and’Vaults of Secrets’.