How funerals have become status symbol

there is a show of affluence by people who pack money in wads to throw/spray

Funeral ceremony is a relatively phenomenal culture and tradition among people. In practising the culture and tradition, what is obligatory is a befitting burial as required by the culture, customs and tradition of the land.

But while some people embark on the normal befitting burial, others go out of the way and engage in a befitting burial of ostentation. They introduce razzmatazz and flamboyancy into funerals and make it a status symbol affair by spending millions of naira. Daily Trust examines the scenario in some Igboland.

A befitting burial has to do with the use of coffin, head stone, grave, clothing, eulogy as well as entertainment of guests. Until  a befitting burial is given, the dead never rests in peace, neither is the bereaved fulfilled until the obligation is met in accordance with the customs, culture, tradition’s determinations.  In other words, whether rich or people, the bereaved owes his or her loved one the befitting burial obligation.

• BREAKING: Nigerian medal hopeful, Blessing Okagbare, suspended for doping
• PODCAST: Human Trafficking: ‘Nigeria Must Ditch Its Infamous Record’

In Igboland, it is not only the haves that do this, even the have-nots do by borrowing money or selling their property to do the burial, even if the departed died a poor person.  The intention of both classes is to show class that they have arrived financially.

However, the extravagance that some burials enjoy attract commendation and appreciation by some people. They believe that  it is not outrageous but an appreciable way of celebrating the dead for a life well spent and the last honour that they deserve.

On the other hand,  it is greeted with condemnation and flaks by some people who believe that it is wastefulness and an unnecessary show of wealth by the celebrants.

During ostentatious and class symbol funerals, the creme-dela-creme of the society, including the elite, culture enthusiasts and custodians, politicians, academics, artistes, personalities from different walks of life always paint the town or village red to give the event a remarkable colouration.

At such occasions, there is a show of affluence by people who pack money in wads to throw/spray at the event, with the currency (ies) getting debased indiscriminately.

In most cases, the exuberance that comes with the occasion gives an impression that the Igbo celebrate the dead more than the living.

The media space was electrified last month when one of such landmark displays of wealth took place at Oba in Anambra State when billionaire businessman, Obinna Iyiegbu, aka Obi Cubana, buried his mother.

Since then, the occasion became the talk of the town and a reference point  on how the Igbo people bury or revere their dead. It is not as if the Cubana mother’s burial is totally out of place as it is the custom and tradition in Igboland to give the dead a befitting burial,  but its magnitude of extravagance  left tongues wagging.

According to culture enthusiasts, it is a pride for an Igbo man to give his parents especially titled ones such burial dignity. Failure to live up to such expectation often times elicits ridicule.

 

For instance, it is cultural that a man kills a cow for his kinsmen during his father’s burial. If he did not do that, it’s a taboo for him to donate cow for other people’s burial such as in-laws and friends.

Moreso, he is also supposed to perform some traditional rites for his kinsmen in respect of his father and his maternal home in respect of his mother. His father’s maternal home also have their own rites. The rites normally come with lists of items that must be presented during such occasion.

For instance, it’s cultural that a goat must be presented to a man’s maternal home along with some numbers of tubers of yam and fowl, when he dies. But sometimes, some families give out cows to show affluence.

In Imo, for instance,  any man that did not perform such rites to his father’s maternal home is not expected to partake in eating such goat slaughtered elsewhere. Some of these practices are compulsory in case of burial and wedding. But they are optional in chieftaincy titles.

A woman that did not perform it for her daughter (ihe ndi omi) or maiden (ihe umu agbogho) is not expected to partake in such rites elsewhere.

However, the Oba incident has brought to the fore another dimension to lavish funeral. One of them is the value of Igbo apprenticeship scheme. It’s said that the donors at Cubana’s mother burial were his apprentices and business associates whom he propped up in various businesses and who had come to show their appreciation.

It is also believed that the idea of such lavish ceremonies is embedded in Igbo cosmology and belief about death. In Igboland, it is believed that one does not totally die, but is on a long journey and can come back through reincarnation.

Extravagant funerals are taken too far, especially because the children of the dead that had been living in a dilapidated building would go the whole hog by selling the man’s landed property to build a mansion to give him a ‘befitting burial.

Culture enthusiast and former director of MAMSER in Imo State, Dr Chuks Osuji, said that lavish burial ceremonies emanated from the Igbo value system and culture that have been grossly abused.

“I have said severally that there is nothing like the best burial or the best wedding. I am against lavish burial. But it seems to be uncontrollable because after all, you can’t tell a man how much he ought to spend from his pocket. It’s encapsulated in the book of Ecclesiastes where it is said that vanity upon vanity, all is vanity. Every occasion must be treated on its merit,” he said.

“Some churches have tried to curtail it. For instances, the Okigwe Diocese of the Anglican Church has banned the printing of banners, brochures and T-shirts as a means of curtailing it, but you find out that it has not worked because it has no sanction unless some moral suasion,” Osujui added.

He added: “How do you explain that the signpost of a man who died is left at the intersection to his village for upward of six months or you find obituary announcements on large billboards over major roads in the city centre? These only show affluence and do not have any cultural connotation.”

Gifts

Another remarkable feature of Igbo burial culture is the exchange of gifts which people offer during  the ceremonies. It is done to assist the families of the deceased to give a befitting burial to their loved one.

Sometime,  the gifts come in form of cash, animals and food items.

Some people present to show appreciation of what the families of the late person has done for them.  This is not a show of wealth.

In Igbo burial ceremonies, every community has its peculiar  custom and tradition, while some have similarities. The Igbo  believe in existence of the person after death and in ancestors as the living dead.  They also believe in life after death. That is why they offer a befitting burial  to prevent the spirit of the dead from haunting them without recourse to the cost implications.

They also believe that if the burial is not offered,  the dead will not have a smooth journey to the great beyond or rest in peace but could appear  in vision and as ghost  and haunt the relations until a proper burial is offered.

Show of extravagance

In 2018, an Anambra man from Ihiala Local Government Area, one Azubuike, buried his father with a BMW jeep worth N32 million.

He had promised to buy car for the man but he could not live up to the time.

He put the late father inside the car and buried him with it.

But this later became a big problem to the Igboman so much that  many people started  kicking against funeral exuberance.

There have been dissenting voices against extravagant funeral ceremonies, which range from calls to legislate against it or an outright ban on the frivolity.

The Catholic Bishop of Awka Diocese, Most Reverend Paulinus Ezeokafor, had launched a campaign against it in Anambra State.

He lamented that the extravagance had gone out of proportion and required legislation to control the excesses.

He noted that if it remained unchecked, it will land people in bondage. Subsequently , a law was enacted to in the state against it.

Governor Willie Obiano, on May 14, 2020, signed  the new burial law.

 

The law stipulated the following: Communities in the state must have burial grounds;  all burial/funeral ceremonies of indigenous deceased persons must be registered with the town union at a fee of N1,500; erection of any billboard, banner or posters of any kind of deceased persons would attract N100,000 fine or six months jail term or both.

The law also provided that the corpse must not be deposited in the mortuary or any other place beyond two months from the date of death;

no blocking of road/street because of burial ceremony, except with the approval of the appropriate local government authority; no wake keep of any kind for any deceased person; religious activity for the deceased person prior to the burial must end by 9:00pm; there must be no food, drink, life band or cultural entertainers during and after religious activity for the deceased person.

The law further stipulated:  All burial ceremonies must be for one day; the burial services must start not later than 9:00 am; it must not last  for more than two hours; no preserved corpse must be exposed for more than 30 minutes from the time of exposition.

It further provided that all condolence visits after any burial ceremony  must not exceed one day;  no person must give the deceased person’s family a condolence gift exceeding money for one jar of palm wine, one carton of beer and one crate of soft drink.

But since the legislation, funeral extravagance has continued in the state with impunity and no culprit has been arrested nor prosecuted for breaching the law.

The recent carnival-like funeral of the mother of businessman Obi Iyiegbu popularly known as Obi Cubana who buried his mother in a N30 million coffin and with over 200 cows  as well as lavish spray of money is an instance.

This confirmed the doubt by a First Republic Aviation Minister, Chief Mbazulike Amechi,  that  the Anambra State burial law might not be implemented when it was enacted.

“How can anybody make such law. Did they consult the communities before making that pronouncement? Are they going to tell communities and families the way they want to bury their dead?  Is it their business?  What concerns them about how people should bury their loved ones?” he asked rhetorically.

The Commissioner for Information and Public Enlightenment Mr C.Don Adinuba, however, assured that  government would enforce the law religiously and anybody that went contrary to it would be punished according to the law.

“It is not our culture and it is not a normal thing to be flamboyant in burial. I am happy that no government official was at the recent flamboyant burial in the state,” he said.

The traditional ruler of Abacha kingdom,  in Idemili north local government area of the state, Igwe Godwin Mbakwe, said that funeral exuberance was not an Igbo culture or tradition.

According to him, lavish burial ceremony in the state was a societal problem and anti-culture.

“It is not an Igbo culture nor a tradition in the Anambra and in Igboland generally. It is not acceptable in the society. It is just a new phenomenon that has become a problem. They may belong to a club. They have an understanding among themselves. They  must have something binding  them together. This kind of burial is not always,” he stressed.

Adinuba added that  the Obi Cubana scenario  might have been  blown out of proportion by his well wishers.

“His well wishers may have blown things out of proportion, thinking that they were projecting him well, while it was not supposed to be so,” he said.

Concerning the legislation, he noted that in every society some laws were difficult to enforce. He added that laws were always made for the good of the society, especially at this time of economic challenges.

“There are many laws in Nigeria that are not obeyed. Have you forgotten that sometime in the past, government gave order that nobody should spray money in a public function. But till now, people are still spraying money in public places. It is a matter of discipline, it is not worth emulating,” he said.

Igbo culture and tradition expert,  Dr Alex Aneado of the Department of Igbo Asian Studies, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Anambra State, said that the ostentation at the Obi Cubana’s mother’s burial  was anti- Igbo culture and tradition.

He said  the normal benefiting burial that every Igbo man is obligated to give to his  parents  was observation of rituals like gunshot and others that are in tandem with Igbo burial traditions.

“This kind of flamboyance in burial ceremony is not cultural.  It is not part of Igbo tradition. It is wastefulness and extravagance. It even attracts armed robbers to the families. There is a difference between a befitting burial and wasteful burial. Funeral extravagance  is not our  culture and values. It should not be encouraged,” he said.

He stressed that though people had  the right to spend their money the way they wanted,  but should not by debasing the culture and values Ndigbo.

On the Anambra State burial law, Dr Aneado said that government could not legislate on  any law to regulate the burial ceremony of the people.

He noted that it was only the elders  of the communities that could pass such law because the rite of passage varies in various communities.

“Burial law from government cannot hold. It has to come from the community. It is only the community that can pass such a law. It is only when it comes to  the elders in the communities that it can be enforceable,” he stressed.