Here, the dead pay rent... and get evicted •Temporary grave N15,000 •Permanent grave N150,000
April 23, 2016
When people die, they supposedly rest. This may not be completely true for the dead in Lagos. Even when permanently asleep, they get charged for the sleeping space. And when the rent isn’t forthcoming, they get evicted. WEEKEND LAGOS team of TOLA ADENUBI, TUNDE DODONDAWA, SYLVESTER OKORUWA and LANRE ADEWOLE went in search of these special tenants and their uncompromising landlords.
As a mega-city, the greatest challenge for residents of Lagos is shelter. A combination of factors ensures that. If government fat cats are not cornering the available land space, especially in areas that catch their fancy, and mopping up low-cost houses meant for the commoners, Shylock landlords are killing with crazy rent.
If miscreants, popularly known as Omo onile (sons of the soil), will allow you build after parting with mind-boggling non-receipted sums, the genuineness of the space you got is another headache to contend with. The everyday streaming of migrants into a waterlogged state with barely enough land is enough to trigger migraine for both the government and the governed. In a land considered to be of immense economic opportunities if you manage to remain on the ground, including the tramps sleeping under the numerous bridges who pay to more domineering miscreants, paying “rent” for shelter seems a burden for all living souls.
But it isn’t only the living that are grappling with paying rent in Lagos. Even the dead pay. And as the living get thrown out when in default, the dead also get sacked when in arrears and the quit notice is even almost always incredibly shorter than what the living get. Welcome to the astonishing world of Lagos public cemeteries, where grave diggers are the landlords and the dead, their unique tenants.
Ishola Olabisi (not real name) once managed a major cemetery in Lagos East senatorial district. His story is intriguing.
If you think he is sour-graping because a political arrangement sacked him from the “juicy” job of providing “grave” accommodation, his story was corroborated in all the cemeteries visited by Saturday Tribune.
Hear his story: “Yes, the rent system is practised in all the cemeteries in Lagos but it is a private arrangement among those who are in charge of such places. Though we are under various local governments, no one mandated us to charge rent from the relatives of those we bury. If anyone says he has been asked to collect any fee in that regard , it is a big lie.”
Ishola, who listed active cemeteries to include Matori in Mushin, Muslim-only cemetery in Agege, another in Ipaja, the popular Atan cemetery and Ikorodu cemetery, disclosed that renting grave portions out is a very flourishing business, though while it lasted for him, there were also occasional awkward situations.
He rolled out rent figures. For normal burial, it is between N15,000 and N12,000, depending on the calibre and the size of the mourners. According to him, it is big business for cemetery handlers when mourners come in their numbers to bury a loved one. Such low-rent space is hardly renewed “because mourners that request for such low-cost space hardly come back to renew their rent even when they promise to. After weeks, since dead bodies decompose fast on laterite ground, the body will be removed and packed in one week, with the same space being rented out to another dead person,” he volunteered.
However, there are rich dead that pay huge rent. A full compliment of vault goes for between N120,000 and N150,000, while a cemented grave with the four corners laid out with cement block cost about N75,000. These are near permanent arrangements which can only change if the relations of the occupier stop coming around.
Ishola provided further insight. “Even on the low-cost, relatives who love their own still renew the rent for a while before they stop coming. Business is always good at the cemetery, especially... (name withheld). You have a minimum of eight bodies a day and about 10 at midnight, waiting to be buried in the morning. It is also a tasking job. No holiday. Our busiest time is between December 1 and January 1. We can’t explain it but that has been the trend.”
When asked about the receipt for the rent, he confessed that it is always forged from one cemetery to another. “We give local government ‘something’ weekly at our own cemetery but it is not fixed. Maybe N10,000 after we could have made N100,000. We print fake receipt. To make our rent deal more believable, we tell the relatives that there is also Certificate of Occupancy (C of O), especially when we target huge money by looking at the crowd and worth of their appearance.”
But our source didn’t have it all rosy with rent and C of O. “There was a day a military man demanded immediate release of the C of O and the registration for which we charged him heavily. I became afraid. When he started threatening me, I even offered to return his money which he refused. It was a bad day for me.”
When further pressed on the inside abuse, he queried if Saturday Tribune expected a new space in a cemetery that predated Nigeria’s independence in 1960.
“At our own cemetery (name withheld), more than 10 million people must have been buried on that same portion of land. So, we remove bones for new bodies. We have a corner we pack such skeletons at the cemetery. When a road construction was done around the area, how many bones did they pack for us to keep in the bones’ corner? The practice will continue, no doubt, but now that you people (Saturday Tribune) are putting eyes into the money which “boys” keep, you may get the authorities to take more interest and turn the cemeteries to IGR (Internally Generated Revenue) targets for local and even state governments. They give the cemeteries to us to manage as political compensation and that is why the authorities hardly disturb us,” Ishola explained.
‘Older tenants must make way for new ones’
Apart from Ishola’s telling stories, Saturday Tribune took trips to various vaults and cemeteries scattered across the state, with the visits revealing contrasting fees and modus operandi. One major issue is the lack of new public cemeteries, obviously making the existing ones over-patronised and in the process, providing quick and flourishing business for the smart Alecs in charge of providing rest for the dead.
“It is a case of demand and supply,” another insider in the “shady” rent business for the dead, revealed. “No land, yet people die everyday. They must be buried. Government has not provided a virgin space. Then the older tenants in cemeteries will definitely have to move for the new ones, except the relatives of the older tenants are ready to secure permanent homes for them.”
When asked if a better arrangement could not be worked that won’t cost much and the dead would be left in peace, he explained, “we tell relatives to rent space permanently. When members of their families die, they will be buried in that same space, the fresh body will be buried on top of the decomposing one. But at least all the bodies will be in one place.”
ATAN CEMETARY
When Saturday Tribune visited the Yaba vault, popularly called Atan cemetery, located along the University of Lagos Road, the fees associated with the type of burial separate the haves from the have-nots.
At the Atan cemetery where Saturday Tribune spoke with the Enquiry Manager, Mr Patrick, he revealed that there are temporary vault and permanent vault. The temporary has only one single phase and it’s N37,000 only.
For the permanent vault, it has a double phase, Single-Permanent and Double-Permanent. For the Single-Permanent, it will cost the dead N180,000 to secure a space while the Double-Permanent (which can contain up to three corpses), will cost the dead N230,000.
On how the money goes into government coffers, the Atan Enquiry Manager stated that “for the permanent vaults, N100,000 goes into the coffers of the Yaba Local Government while the rest is for the cemetery and the contractor in charge of digging and burying.
“After payment is made for the permanent vault, the family of the dead gets a C of O and receipts from the local government. This is proof that they have secured the space for ever.
“The owners will henceforth pay N10,000 annually as fees for maintenance of the vault by the Atan cemetery.
“For the temporary, there is no need for the issuance of C of O by the local government because it is not secured by the family of the dead. After five years, another family can use the same burial space since it is a temporary burial space.
“That is the difference between the permanent and temporary burial spaces. The temporary spaces are open to other families for use after every five years of burial while the permanent space is owned by the family of the dead for life.”
IKORODU VAULT
At the Ikorodu vault, a worker who identified himself as Mr Lateef Akinode explained that he charges N25,000 for ordinary tomb and N50,000 for the marbled tomb. He, however, directed Saturday Tribune to the office of the Executive Secretary, Ikorodu Local Government Area for payment purposes.
At the office of the Executive Secretary, the Head of Department, Environment, stated that they charge N100,000 for permanent vault.
He, however, said they don’t charge for rent at Ikorodu again due to complaints of irregularities by families of the deceased. He said irregularities ranging from exhuming of corpses have forced the local government to stop temporary vaulting.
“Since January 2016, interment here has been permanent vaults. The family of the dead pay N100,000 for the ground and they own the space forever,” he stated.
IKOYI VAULT
At Ikoyi, there are contrasting fees for burying the dead. For the Ikoyi vault, the family of the deceased will surely spend a fortune to get a space for their dead.
The cemetery has various classes of vaults, ranging from single, double and triple vaults. As the names suggest, the single takes only a corpse, double takes two, while the triple takes three. The double and triple vaults are mostly bought by people who have chosen to be buried in the same tomb with their spouses when they die.
The prices are as varied as the vaults. For the single vault, the price range is between N367,500 and N700,000. This differentiation is determined by the level of the density of the area you are paying for. They have New High Density vault, Single High Density vault and Single Medium Density vault. The double and triple vaults are sold for N1 million and N1.5 million respectively.
As of 2015, the least vault to find for a resting place is from N1 million while the most expensive vault, armed with gated gardens, goes from N40 million.
IKOYI CEMETERY
A staff of the environment office of Eti-Osa Local Government Area, Mr Adigun, told Saturday Tribune that temporary burial space goes for N50,000. This will only last for six months and the corpse will be evicted for another corpse.
Under this arrangement, the burial spot is devoid of any tomb or gate since its temporary. The space only allows the corpse to decompose.
For the permanent burial arrangement, a burial space for only one corpse is N320,000 while a two layer grave goes for N380,000. For a three-layer burial arrangement, it costs N480,000.
With burial space shrinking by the day in the state, and the demand for it getting higher by the day, the monkey rent business does not look like ending anytime soon, despite the bigger chunk of the “deadly” revenue going into private pockets. The business will surely remain profitable for those behind it, maybe until the day of an unlikely revolt by the “spirit” tenants.
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