Holding The Dead To Ransom

In Nigeria, paying ransom for kidnapped persons became very rampant, especially during the second term of President Muhammadu Buhari. The state lost control. People were captured on highways, children at schools, and farmers, at their farms. If your family member or friend was captured by any of the banditry syndicates, you had to bargain on ransom to secure release of your loved one, if lucky, alive, occasionally, dead. It was not a surprise to anyone that state security instruments facilitated these tense ransom negotiations. Sheikh Gumi was provided state security to “assist” negotiations with Kaduna state kidnappers. One got the sense these security apparatuses were part of the syndicate, with clear knowledge of the whereabouts of the kidnappers and their victims.

But how can the dead still be held to ransom? Holding the dead to ransom sounds like Fela Anikulapo Kuti’s classics: “deadi body get accident” with the addition of “double wahala for deadi body and the owner of deadi body”

I took off for Ijebu-Idode, the maternal side of my roots a little after 1 pm on July 21, 2023 to attend a burial. The head of my maternal kinship, Otunba C.O. Koya, was waiting for me at the Enyo Petrol station just before one enters the Kara bridge. I would be staying the night at his comfortable country home that is surrounded by much greenery at Idode. Little wonder that I slept very soundly.

Before going to retire for the night, we had to attend the wake-keep for the burial of Mrs. Victoria Ebun-Oluwa Alaba, who died at age 74. The dead woman was married to one of my mother’s first cousins – Cornelius Adedolapo Alaba who had died about a quarter of a century earlier than his wife. We were late in starting the wake-keep ceremony that had been billed for 5pm. I have never liked the concept of African time, so, I was pleased that the St. John’s Anglican Church, Idode’s, Resident Pastor, who conducted the Wake-keep service admonished on the need to be prompt. Nice value inculcation, I thought. He warned that if we did not present the deadi body at the entrance of the Church on the following day, Saturday, July 22, 2023 at 09:45, the committal service for the deadi body would commence at 10:00 without the deadi body.

We had listened to testimonies about the late Mrs. Alaba. Though she had next to nothing in material wealth, she was always sharing the little she had. A moving one was the fact that she was a bread seller at Alapere in Lagos but contributed financially to the Lagos branch of the St. John’s Anglican Church, Idode that was meeting at Otunba Koya’s residence at Ketu, Lagos. She did so when many wealthier people did not contribute. It is not new to me, that people starve themselves to contribute to the Church, especially as they advanced in age and started hoping for paradise in heaven. Even some of the pen robbers who looted much of their lives make a lot available to the Church and Clergy as part of the project to ensure that they make it to heavenly paradise.

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On July 22nd, the deadi body was at the entrance of the Church on time. But my host was struggling at his residence to remit 50,000 naira to the Church’s account. He had to explain his predicament to me. He was to pay the money to the Church on behalf of our family as projects fund levy, or else, the deadi body will not be attended to.

My host was requested to pay the extortion money into a particular private account. He asked for the Church’s projects fund account but was told in writing that it was not ready. Strange. It sounded to us that this was the style of civil servants in ripping off the government. My host, not being the type that gets easily bamboozled, nosed around till he got the Church’s project fund’s account which is separate from the general thanksgiving account also held at Union Bank. This latter account is transparent and audited by the Ijebu Diocese of the Anglican Church. But how will the Church know about private accounts in different banks being used for the reception of project funds?

With the transfer duly done, and a WhatsApp message to the Pastor that it had been done, one expected that the service would commence on time. But we waited and waited for the second and final bell to signal the commencement of the commendation service. There was no second tolling of the bell. The deadi body, accompanied by the staff of office of Oba Ajalaye, our King, were held up at the entrance of the Church. I protested. The People’s Warden told me off that every society has its own order. He knew and I knew that they were pissed off by not having the money in their designated account.

In many Nigerian cultures, burial rites are often channels of exploitation, with the families of the dead having to pay several unfair dues in various forms. In this case, members of the deceased families who themselves may be struggling to earn a living would have to combine the burden of the irreplaceable loss with ridiculous and compulsory expenses that will come from “our village people”, including the Church. One would expect empathy towards the families of the dead with support to cushion the effects from the loss. What good does holding the dead to ransom in this manner bring to the direct families, and the moral fabric of our society? The only probable explanation is that the spirit of extortion, exploitation and corruption reigns large even among men in flowing cassocks.

I had a similar experience in 2010 when I was to bury my mother. About 1,000 people had converged at Odosenlu to mourn and at the same time felicitate with me that I did not predecease my mum. My mum’s lifeless body was not received by the Clergy as I refused to pay all sorts of demands that were about 150,000 naira of the pre-Buhari devaluations, to the Church. It was raining. Well, my dead mum could not run for shelter. I decided there and then that the church service would not cure my mum’s presumed sins, if indeed she had any, and we should proceed to the cemetery and commit my mum’s body to earth without any Pastor. Otunba Koya, as my mum’s first cousin, would not accept my decision. He paid 50,000 naira which I later reimbursed.

I politely informed the People’s Warden at St. John’s Church, Idode, that they could observe their order and continue to hold the deadi body to ransom, but that I also reserve the right to inform the world on their unacceptable practice.

Subsequently, the second bell tolled and the Resident Pastor sauntered in. It was 10:17. And he moved towards the entrance at 10:20 to receive the deadi body. Here was a man who was trying to inculcate values of promptness the previous night receiving the deadi body twenty minutes later than scheduled and the service proper commenced twenty-five minutes late. He apologised for starting late because some confirmation was taking place.

The Resident Pastor demonstrated intelligence in his sermon that was a great anti-corruption and anti-ostentatious living one. He correctly stated that leadership was an opportunity for service and not self-aggrandisement. He spoke eloquently about late Yoruba sages who had eschewed corruption and lived lives of service: Obafemi Awolowo, Adekunle Ajasin and Lateef Kayode Jakande. He gave an analogy of people at a feast having very long spoons that cannot be manoeuvred to their individual mouths but would have fed well if each of them used the very long spoons to serve another. He called for the spirit of sharing and investment in people as respective legacies. In imploring for the rich to build legacies around people as opposed to palaces that are the size of a village, he pointed at the abandoned palaces of Ijebu great men of yore, that a few years later are abandoned properties.

Alas, the beautiful appropriate values delivered as a sermon for development in Nigeria was a case of “do as I say but not as I do”. The resident Pastor at St. John’s Church, Idode, subsequently collected several offerings, donations and what you like. The rot we face permeates all aspects of life as I normally point out in my treatment of corruption. Though rightly so, we overfocus on corruption at the public sector, especially at the Federal Government level leaving the state and local governments to do whatever they like. Many of us do not even look at the corruption in the private sector let alone, the social sector that harbours institutions like the religious and traditional authorities.

For me, corruption is not limited to the extortion that the Church is being used for today. It was not always like this. The Church Missionary Society raised money and supported the work of the Church that enabled the establishment of my Primary and Secondary Schools. People like Great Ransome Kuti (Fela’s father), put in time to play the roles of preparing the young for a western educated life on earth and paradise in heaven. I do not know much about the Zakat collected in Mosques until Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, (same one that Oby Ezekwesili unsuccessfully and emotionally tried to rubbish over forgery of a JAMB result), wrote about his stoppage of how contributions were being stolen at the Central Mosque in Abuja. But it is obvious that Muslim Clerics are not living comparative ostentatious lives at the expense of the people and the public at large, as their Christian counterparts.

The Bishopreneurs are being made to pay taxes in several countries. Not paying has adverse impact on our economy, aside from the fact that they actively encourage public stealing with their blessings following collections from known thieves from national patrimony. The Bishopreneurs pretend to be unaware claiming not to be police officers. However, the Yoruba say that the thief who stole the palm-oil in a big jar from the ceiling is not as much a thief as the accomplice who helped collect the jar from him so he could safely descend the ladder. Without the accomplice, the thief would not descend the ladder holding on to the pricey palm-oil. Our focus for a better Nigeria should not only be on Buhari and now Tinubu and their respective aides. We should be examining the acts of the leaders of other levels, including the private and social sectors.

We also need to address the robbing of the public sector of resources in favour of the social sector as the smart Church entrepreneurs also known as Bishopreneurs avoid paying taxes. My state – Ogun State, for instance will probably surpass Lagos on internally generated revenues if the appropriate land use taxes are collected from within the several mega cities belonging to helicopter/jet-flying Pastors and their respective families. Why should I be paying land use charges as tax to the state and my friends who chose to build in the religious preserves are exempt? I even read that one of the Pentecostal franchise owners ordered tax collection officers who came to survey tax collection possibility to be beaten up and there were no repercussions.

I think it is time to begin to “Soro Soke” on the volumes of corruption that go on within the traditional and religious authorities in our social sector. And very importantly, we need to pause to think about how we have come to think about what we think we are thinking on going to heavenly paradise instead of being in paradise here on earth. It is time to open our eyes and see that many Pastors and Reverends are no longer gentlemen and gentlewomen. They are seeking to enjoy their own paradise on earth while they tell us about the mansion waiting for us in heaven within which we will be like stars before the Holy Throne and dancing as we praise worship for eternity.

As at today, humans are unable to rule from the grave. Nonetheless, I put my children and grandchildren on notice that when it is my turn, they should be smart enough and not allow themselves to be held to ransom by anyone pretending to be able to facilitate my entry into heaven. “Deadi body no dey smoki”. They should get any family member who is a Pastor (for their own sake), because I could no longer care, to lead the Nunc Dimittis. Or better still, invite any of the friends I grew up with to say a few committal words, (again to please themselves), and lower my casket if my body is available for burial at death.