NIGERIA-CULTURE: Thumbs Down To Cremation

By Toye Olori Reprint | | Print |

Toye Olori

Lagos, Aug 8 1996 (IPS) - The Lagos State Government has quickly back- pedalled on plans to make cremation mandatory, following a virulent outcry from religious leaders and other quarters.

Segun Ogundimu, Lagos State Commissioner for Health and Social Welfare, had announced late last month a plan to introduce cremation, because of the “acute shortage of land for more cemeteries”.

“There is no way we can escape cremation. There is no land in Lagos again that can be used as a cemetery. Our people have to give serious consideration to the idea,” Ogundimu said in July.

Lagos, with a land area of about 43 square kilometres and a population of some six million, has four cemeteries which state officials say are congested.

Official statistics show that an average of 4,000 bodies are buried yearly at the two cemeteries located on Lagos Island, while an average of 20 bodies are buried daily at the two cemeteries on the mainland.

Lagosians (residents of Lagos state) immediately attacked the plan, which the state government now says “will not be forced on anyone”.

Ogundimu said last weekend that the State would, however, soon set up a crematorium to cater for unclaimed bodies at the morgues and for those who may want the service.

Cremation is largely viewed with contempt in this West African nation where beliefs are heavily influenced by religion and tradition. An estimated 65 percent of Nigerians are Muslims, 30 percent are Christians and the rest follow traditional beliefs.

Religious leaders were the first to raise their voices against the State’s plan, arguing that cremation was against the Holy Scriptures.

The Catholic Archbishop of Lagos, Olubunmi Okogie citing the Bible, said cremation should never be considered, as the body must be respected.

“The body is made in the likeness of God. The body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, the dwelling of the soul and so it must be respected. Nobody has the right to tamper with the body,” Okogie said.

“When someone dies, he is free from the world’s trouble. The soul returns to the maker while the body waits for final judgement,” Okogie adds. “The people prefer to put that body somewhere it can be remembered, but when you cremate, that respect for the body is no longer there.”

Muslim religious leaders also condemned the idea.

“It is unIslamic. The Holy Quoran forbids it and we will fight to bury our dead. We must not follow other people’s culture just for the fun of it. The Nigerian culture allows for the burying of our dead and nothing else,” Abdulahi Isiaka, a Muslim leader in Iwaya, a suburb here, told IPS.

“It is a command from Allah that a dead body be buried in the ground. We are not permitted in Islam to burn anybody dead or alive. Only Allah has the right to punish with fire, so I do not subscribe to cremation,” Isiaka says.

Some Lagosians, like Fola Awosika, believe that if Nigerians begin to practice cremation, the spirits of their ancestors will wreak havoc on the country.

“The soul of the body you have destroyed by burning will certainly be back with a vengeance to haunt whoever had a hand in that decision and process,” says Awosika, a doctor who practices both modern and traditional medicine.

But Bamgboye Afolabi, Leader of the Nigerian chapter of Buddhists, told the privately-owned ‘Guardian’ newspaper here that cremation is the cleanest form of disposing of a corpse.

“The body is a temple and the substance of the law of life whether dead or alive, it must be kept in absolute purity,” he says.

Some residents however believe that cremation was only being used as a ruse by the state government to use land for more lucrative purposes than burial plots. There is still plenty of land outside the metropolis where cemeteries can be located, they say.

“The Lagos state government cannot be serious about shortage of land. All they are after is to sell land to developers or demolish and build unaffordable government houses,” Babatunde Okeowo, a Lagos musician told IPS.

Musicians like Okeowo are also against the idea of cremation, because they make a lot of money at burial ceremonies. Besides the booking fee, which ranges from 10,000 to 50,000 Naira (about 125 to 625 U.S. dollars), musicians are freely sprayed by mourners with wads of notes at the burial ceremonies.

Undertakers also reject the idea, which would put a dent in their profits. Caskets sell for between 10,000 and 200,000 Naira (between 125 to 2,500 u.s. dollars) depending on the quality.

“Cremation will surely drive us out of business…If the plan (to make cremation mandatory) had sailed through, we would have been forced to close down,” Mike Okusanya who owns a lucrative casket business in central Lagos told IPS.