The easy and nearly costless way that Muslims bury their deceased has won praise from a growing number of Southern Nigerians, particularly Christians.
They commended him after former President Muhammadu Buhari was laid to rest yesterday in his hometown of Daura, Katsina State.
The way the body was lowered normally, without the usual mortuary delays, fanfare, expensive casket, executive arrangements, incessant demands, special uniforms and heavy cultural, varied drinks and foods, confused the Christians who watched the former president’s funeral, which was broadcast live into every home and office.
Commentators on many radio phone-in morning programmes over Buhari’s burial said such austere burials should be emulated by the South, especially Christians.
They called on traditional councils in the South, including state governments, to impress on communities and families to mandatorily review what they described as obnoxious cultures and traditions where people are forced to expend their entire savings, sell their houses and properties just to bury their dead.
One of the commentators, Joshua Josiah, disclosed that some family members would even abandon corpses of loved ones in the morgues for over two or three years.
He recalled how the former Senate President, Dr. Joseph Wayas, was similarly abandoned in a London morgue for three years before public outcry forced the burial to be done.
The callers also expressed anger over how churches often draw up long lists of demands before their members can be buried, informing that they even demand that outstanding debts the deceased might have owed must be cleared before interment.
Reacting, spokesman of the Brotherhood of the Cross and Star, Patriarch Amah Williams, said his organisation does not delay the burials of their members.
“Our members are laid to rest almost immediately, not later than 72 hours. We don’t encourage any delays or any fanfare or even embalmment. We seriously frown at ostentatious burials. We salute our Muslim brethren over the simple way of disposing their dead.”
A member of Nollywood and former Commissioner for Culture in Cross River State, Eric Anderson, in a social media post, has also drawn attention to the abandonment of their former member, late Big Willie from Eket in Akwa Ibom State, whose body has been abandoned in a Lagos mortuary for two years.
He said the brother, one Mr. Effiok Udoh, has insisted that it is the family that will decide how and when to bury him.
Anderson expressed anger over the delay, saying the actor’s family are ready and capable to shoulder the burial bill, worrying that such delay was spiritually injurious to the soul of their former member.
