By Chiemena Abara
There’s a dangerous extravagant financial air that has filled the entire Igbo land which is expensive burials to make one appear like a king in death .
It has become very worrisome, especially to right thinking individuals that burials in Igbo land are now made unnecessarily too expensive..
This has made a lot of families to borrow in order to burial their deceased member to meet up with the new societal burial standard.
It is very disheartening and sad to observe that a person who died in penury, misery, poverty and unattended to is buried with expensive customized casket and the corpse driven in a Limousine ambulance and also laid in a posh house.While alive, the person lived in a thatched house and bushy dirty environment.
Some families sell their property, some borrow millions of naira to bury their dead who died without care and good medication.
In some places shanties and houses the dead lived in while alive are pulled down, the environment cleaned up to give way for a painted magnificent edifice constructed under few months where the dead will lie in state.
The most annoying aspect of this unnecessary burial style is that cows are distributed to kinsmen, the people from maternal home of the deceased and the Umuada (the married indigenous members of the community) during the burial of one who died of hunger and without tasting good food while alive.
Even the churches own financial conditions that must be met before burial are outrageous.They don’t consider the the financial status of the dead while alive.The conditions at times make some families hire another church to conduct the burial for them.
This idea of giving the dead expensive burial appear nonsensical and should be stopped.The best is to bury the dead modestly without funfair.
Death is the cessation of life and transition to eternity which must be solemn without celebration.
The kinsmen of the dead, people from his maternal home and the Umuada should stop making unbearable demands from the bereaved families.
Churches should be encouraged to lessen the financial burden of the families of the dead with good policies.Their conditions are becoming increasingly unbearable and have made some members exit a particular church after the demise of their loved ones.
There’s every need to stop expensive burials that is ravaging Igbo land and making families become poorer after burials.All hands must be on deck to stop expensive burials in Igbo land.The time to do it is now.
Chiemena Abara, a public commentator writes from Owerri
