PUNCH
In Nigeria, there is a troubling trend of abandonment of loved ones remains in morgues, driven by the rising costs and societal expectations surrounding extravagant funerals. This phenomenon has led to overcrowded mortuaries, as families often prioritise lavish send-offs over proper burials. With some corpses languishing for years, the consequences of this dilemma are stark, GODFREY GEORGE writes
For 18 months, Prince Chibundu could not lay his father to rest. The high chief had passed away quietly. As dawn broke on a warm morning in May 2019, his body succumbed to the cruel grip of a stroke.
A man who once strode the corridors of accounting firms, working as a certified accountant, he later turned his back on spreadsheets and audits to embrace the ancient throne of his ancestors.
But even as his spirit left this world, his family found themselves paralysed, trapped by tradition and torn by the insidious pursuit of a grand, “befitting” funeral.
What should have been a period of mourning and reflection swiftly became a battlefield of wills. Chibundu’s family—his mother, Chioma, and his father’s three other wives—found themselves on opposing sides of a cultural tug of war.
His mother, pragmatic in her grief, proposed a simple burial two months after the chief’s death, reasoning that they could honour him later with a lavish remembrance ceremony when finances and emotions were in a better place.
But the other wives, driven by the weight of ancestral expectations and the demands of kin, vehemently disagreed.
“It was a real struggle,” Chibundu recalled, his voice heavy with the memory. “I was still in school at the University of Abuja, trying to focus on my studies, but the family battle consumed me.”
His phone rang incessantly. His mother would call, her voice low and strained, pleading with him to return to Imo State and help her make sense of the chaos.
But Chibundu’s elder sister, who was living abroad at the time, begged him to stay away. She feared for his safety, warning that tensions were running high and that an attempt to intervene might lead to violence.
The prince was caught in a whirlwind of conflicting emotions—torn between duty to his family and the haunting possibility of danger. The fight, however, was not just about timing or family rivalries; it was about status and pride.
Chibundu’s father, though modest in life, had accumulated significant wealth and properties. Yet, in death, these assets became a secondary concern.
What truly mattered to the extended family was the spectacle of the burial. The man’s soul, they believed, would find no peace without a ceremony worthy of his status, a grand display of power and opulence that would satisfy the ancestors.
“They wanted a burial that people would talk about for years,” Chibundu explained, his voice growing bitter. “It wasn’t about honouring him—it was about showing off.”
Then came the request that shook him to his core. One day, shortly after finishing his third-year exams, Chibundu received a call from his uncle. His voice was calm, almost businesslike.
“I need you to get access to your father’s bank accounts,” his uncle had said, barely hesitating. “We’ll need at least N20m for the burial. You are his first son. You have the money; give us!”
Chibundu, stunned, stared at his phone. The figure was staggering, the request even more so. “N20m? For a burial?” he recalled asking, and his uncle’s voice was stern. It was N20m or nothing.
“I called my mum immediately,” Chibundu recounted, still sounding incredulous at the memory. “She told me to stay out of it. She said we needed that money to survive now that my dad was gone. How could they expect us to throw it all away on a single day?”
The family’s demands grew more outrageous with each passing week. The elders, in their fervour for a “befitting” burial, took matters into their own hands.
Without warning, they seized the chief’s body and transferred it to a government morgue in a neighbouring state, out of reach of the immediate family.
For months, the corpse of the once-revered man languished in cold storage, held hostage by tradition and family pride.
