This letter was sent to NAIJABLAB by a reader.
Dear Naijablab,
My heart is still pounding, and I am so traumatized by what I saw at the Atan Cemetary today, I do not even know if I can get a good sleep tonight.
I have just returned from a friend's burial at the Atan Cemetary, Yaba Lagos. First of all, as soon as I got to my house, I had to dump the shoes I wore in a dust-bin outside my gate because of the dead bodies and bones I sadly stepped upon while attending the burial.
At Atan, there is no respect for dead bodies, and I now know better not to ever ever encourage anyone to bury their loved ones there. Dead bodies are treated with no respect at Atan Cemetery.
First of all, the staff and grave diggers should all be sacked because they are in a big scam of trading in human remains. It was obvious to me today when I saw, and spoke to some of them. It was also obvious that all they waited for was for the relations of the dead to just dump the body and go home, while they carry out their usual business of desecrating and violating the dead bodies.
This is what happened before my korokoro eyes today:
We got there for the burial. We were confused as to where exactly to go. Cemetery attendants were not interested in helping. They were as morbid as the dead themselves. Instead of telling us that the burial was in progress, they told us the procession had not come, and that the dead body was still in the mortuary. This was a way of discouraging us from waiting. One of us made a comment while waiting that under normal condition, this Atan cemetery should be full up by now. In other words, there should ordinarily not be any more room for burying the dead, because it has existed for over 40 years. So where is the space? One of the attendants suddenly faced her, saying 'if it gets full up, how do you want us to eat'? My body froze. He said it with so much aggression and callousness.
We then decided to phone another friend who soon disclosed to us that they were already on the burial site. She later came to lead us there. On the way we had to jump, hurdle, skip, and saunter over various bones and decomposing human flesh etc etc, that had been dug up in the nefarious activities of these callous grave diggers and cemetery attendants. Someone among us threw up and vomited along the line. We went through the short prayer service, and then it was time to lower the dead body. Suddenly I heard the parents of the dead body arguing with the grave diggers. I got near enough to listen. Apparently, the family had paid as much as N250,000 for a proper burial ground, but all Atan could provide was a 2ft hole, instead of the usual 6ft grave. I also heard them insisting that they wanted the site to be paved immediately, with a head-stone to secure the body. Atan attendants could not provide the blocks and cement for the job. Instead they were appealing to the parents to go home and rest assured they will do all that was necessary.
Amid these arguments, I heard a woman say that there was no hope for that dead body (my poor late friend), and that these scavengers (grave diggers) were poised to exhume her from this shallow 2ft grave as soon as we all depart, and desecrate it in order to sell off her body parts. My body went cold. So all they were doing was employing a delay tactic to make the exhumation easy for them. I cried, and left there thinking to myself, 'what kind of country is this', where human beings suffer all through life, and then cannot even rest in peace when dead! It is sad. I got home and told all my children NEVER to bury me in Atan. I hear that all Nigerian Cemeteries are similar to this. In that case I will rather be cremated. Shame on Nigeria. Life is worthless in Nigeria, and the dead rest in pieces (not in PEACE).
Mrs. Felicia Okojie.
(Lekki, Lagos)
No comments:
Post a Comment