Conversations with the dead by Tunde Akande

James Hardly Chase, now late, thought the dead stay dumb. He wrote a novel about that. His novels were very popular in my days in secondary school. You weren't fashionable if you weren't reading James Hardly Chase those days. But now that James Hardly Chase is dead, he should know better whether or sure the dead stay dumb or not. When he wrote, he was imagining, but now he knows better; he's dead. James Hardly Chase himself, at least to the living, has not been quiet since he died; he has been conversing with the living.

Dele Farotimi, a lawyer and activist, said he derived his dexterity in the English language from conversations with James Hardly Chase. Till now, those who read Hardly Chase can hear him loudly. Dele wrote some of those conversations in a book he wrote about the judiciary in Nigeria that indicted a prominent senior lawyer and also set Nigeria on fire. In that book, James Hardly Chase spoke eloquently, which Dele turned out in good and beautiful phrases.

This is not about necromancy; that belongs to a generation of youths called Yahoo boys who think they can use human parts to make money, and their babalawo and pastors who claim that with human parts, they can make these ignorant and lazy youths into billionaires overnight. But the Lord Jesus spoke with the dead, he proved James Hardly Chase and many who believe the dead stay dumb wrong. Jesus' friend, Lazarus, in a Bible account, was sick, and the information was brought to him. Rather than rush to his friend, Jesus stayed back for four days. He allowed Lazarus to die and be entombed before he went. But when he got there with his friend already wrapped and placed in the tomb and stone dead, Jesus called to his friend: Lazarus, come forth. Lazarus heard and came forth. After Lazarus heard Jesus and rose from the dead, he continued to speak to the Jews about Jesus. Each time they saw him, they saw vividly what Jesus said about himself, that he is the resurrection and the life, that resurrection is not an event but a person. This speaking of Lazarus enraged the elders of the Jews, who planned to kill him again, intending to shut him up permanently. There are many people today who are like those Jews, intending to shut the dead up in Nigeria so that they don't speak to the nation again. You don't think the dead who were killed during the Biafra war have not been speaking? Do you think the dead who died as a result of the herders' raid in Benue and Plateau are not speaking? The dead are very stubborn, they can't be shut down, they continue to converse even with as many Nigerians who don't want to hear. They speak to the conscience of those Nigerians who want to shut them down.

The dead are very good historians. They keep accurate histories that cannot be denied. They keep histories of the hospitals in which they were killed and who did the killing, they keep records of their ages, they talk about the love they kept, and they speak about their friends who are still living. They tell you about their burial, whether they were well-treated or just thrown away. I heard the dead converse with me recently when I went with my extended family to bury a cousin who had died about a month ago. He was 80 years old when he died. He lived with his wife, and their years of marriage had produced no children. So he was locked in the house of a mortician for those days. He was a retired civil servant who had earned a pension. He was disabled in an accident that he had in the United States of America on the very day he graduated, and as a result, he had cut off his relationship with his family on both his father's and mother's sides. You know the lies we tell ourselves in Nigeria when wrong things happen to us. In our superstition, we say things like: your father's second wife caused this wrong to happen to you. You know she is a witch, or your friends who are jealous of your success, made it happen. He heard many of these and so severed relationships even with friends. But a good woman married him despite his condition. A government also gave him a job, and he rose very well despite that, though brilliant, he couldn't work because of his disability. Anyhow, he died and that to the living ended his suffering and loneliness. He had a modest bungalow in an extreme part of the town where he lived. Family members he had cut off decided to continue the fight with him even after his death. Nobody will contribute a dime to arrange to dispose of him, just disposal, not burial. The wife insisted on a decent burial and which delayed the time. The pastor of his church warned the little team assisting not to choose the Sango cemetery in Ibadan. His reasons were not stated, but were very clear in his tone. Cemeteries all over the nation, including the ones owned by churches and mosques, have become the attraction of cultists who go there to steal human parts supposedly for money rituals.

Sango cemetery is especially notorious for that; it was gathered from the tone and looks of this pastor. But he had to concur when the real thing that made cemeteries an attraction for those who go to them at odd hours, colluding with workers there to steal human parts of the dead, happened to this late cousin. These cultists are the ones like the elders of the Jews who want the dead killed again so they stay dumb. Money is a factor. Since there is so little to do with the "disposing of," Sango cemetery beckoned. So on a Friday, as early as 7 am, this reporter and his wife must get to Sango Cemetery to dispose of this consignment. We got there early enough and, because we must not move close to a corpse, a rule dictated by our religion, we planned to stay at the gate and watch from a distance. From inside the cemetery emerged a living being; he was young. "Who do you ask for, sir?" he asked me. So people could come to a cemetery and ask for a person. I thought the cemetery was the abode of the dead, where the dead escape from the hustle and bustle of the living, where they had escaped all the envy, jealousy, hatred, anger, and bitterness of the living. "We are here to wait for a corpse that will soon arrive here. " Almost without letting me finish my statement, he spoke again; "you are from the XYZ area, and the corpse you are bringing is to be extracted from the mortician this morning and brought here." They say the dead are prophetic; they can see into the affairs of the living, and my heart began to pump heavily. Is this what is happening? Am I in the presence of a dead person? In courage, I fired a question, "How do you know all these, even though the corpse in question had been brought back from the mortician since yesterday when we had the wake keep?" He smiled and spoke again, perhaps noticing some fear in me and intending to calm me, "I was here when they came to book." I regained my composure. Next, was the young man again; " you can't stand at the gate in the early morning sun. Come to the office and sit." An office here? The office turned up to be the tomb of a rich family. It was big and had a tent over it, even a well-constructed roof. It had two steel chairs and a centre table. The chairs and table were riveted to the floor. The table was made of marble. The young man cleaned the chairs and table and asked us to sit. We sat just beside a grave, that of a father and a mother, a man and his wife. The husband died at 86, while his wife died at 80. When the young man who I now think was at most an attendant at the cemetery saw that I took a keen interest in reading the inscription on the tombstone, he began to talk. "The husband and the wife died within a few months of one another. The husband was the first to die, and then the wife. Down there is their first son, who died before the two of them. He was 39." The two dead spoke their name, which I read on the inscription. "The son, though he died at 39, was already then a big man; he was a chief. He is the one that has a statue built to his memory over there," he motioned to a little distance away from us, about five meters. The surroundings of this son have been overtaken by bushes, the cemetery itself is a very thick bush of thick trees that gives tremendous shade to the dead, giving the impression that the dead must enjoy a cool atmosphere. The tombstone of this father and mother is very close to the perimeter fence, which is very close to the main road. They were king and queen in life, and in death, they continue to be talking to the living from their palatial tomb and hearing the continual hooting of cars and lorries by men and women who are still running about trying to make an impression until they join the population at the cemetery or another cemetery somewhere else. Life ends nowhere, not even in a cemetery; it continues.

The dead took over history. They had been rich, and so also their son. When their son died, he was buried at what was then the edge of the cemetery. The distance between him and where they were buried was secure; the cemetery had not been full then. Knowing that the cemetery will certainly become full with all kinds of problems, their children had secured a little distance from the perimeter fence to bury them. That was what brought them close to the fence and the road. They like their children for that foresight. They are not afflicted with the problems which is afflicting others of their colleagues in the cemetery now. You will soon move in, and you will see these afflictions for yourself. Our children knew Nigerians are not organized and will leave us unattended to sometimes, even if they are ready to pay a fortune. The money will be collected, and nothing will be done because the money will be stolen by somebody who will forget that he will also join us at the cemetery.

Then my wife saw part of the roof of the tent over the tombstone falling off. "Oh, how I wish somebody would come to attend to this before it gets worse." The dead heard and spoke, "Yes, the children will soon attend to it. They come here regularly to see our welfare." The husband died in 2001, and the wife too in the same year, 2001. So this young man has been in this cemetery for a long time now. At least he must have been here in 2001 when this couple were buried here. A blaring siren in a Sienna SUV and a jeep behind revved up their engine continually into the morning warmth, ending our conversation with this beautiful and loving couple. It was the corpse we were awaiting. They were piloted into the cemetery by the young attendant. We followed the vehicles. We had to wait; the measurement of the width of the casket showed that the grave had to be expanded. The workers moved into action. The time they employed to fix the grave became useful to interview some other dead people. A young medical doctor from across the mud road beckoned. He was entombed in a huge tomb decorated with beautiful tiles. He was born in 1976 and died in 2023. But why this celebration of a young man who died at the prime of his age? What killed him? He must have been brilliant to have read medicine, especially in Nigeria, where it requires very high grades to study medicine. He heard and replied, "Yes, I read medicine and was in practice, but the cold hand of death snatched me away just as it snatches every man. Though I'm trained to help others stay alive but I couldn't help myself. Other doctors couldn't help me either, even the senior ones. My fiancée, to whom I was engaged, decided to honour me with this huge vault. Do you see a bouquet? She laid it there as an honour for me. I loved her and she loved me, but our marriage was not to be. I hope the management of this cemetery will maintain this place so I can endure." Young man? How do the parents feel? How much did it cost to train him? How about the parents? Why did he end up in a forsaken place like this? "I'm from a poor home, but I had an education because of my talent, my parents, already distraught by my death, could not afford an expensive burial for me, but my finance, with her little finances, did this," he replied. Opposite this young and brilliant medical doctor was a recently finished tomb of a child. It had just been cemented. It was buried beneath a pawpaw tree that is not yet fruiting. What is a young child doing here? Why is it here? It spoke, "You know nobody likes for their child to die. But I did, and my parents had no place of their own to bury me. Somebody advised them they could get a place here, and that's why I'm here. They have asked me to rest well, you can read what they inscribed on my little tomb. I'm resting well, as they said, no more sickness that doctors don't understand. I wish my parents well." Has the pawpaw tree any meaning, I asked. "Yes, I think they are mourning that I did not bear my fruit before I died."

Then the movement to the place of the corpse we took there and there were complaints everywhere. There was no vacant space again, and so everybody was squeezed together. Some graves had collapsed, and you could almost see the body or bones inside of them if you looked very well. But who will not be afraid to look the dead in the face? There was no way these bodies would not be tampered with. Some tombstones were still very strong, but many were broken. You could distinguish the poor and the rich. The poor remained poor even in death. The rich told their story: "Originally, this place belonged to us. Nobody was bringing the poor here. You could see our beautiful tombstones. But when we filled the place and the poor could not afford the expensive private cemetery in the city, they began to bring them here, squeezing them among us. They are the open graves you see. Nigerians don't have any regard for the poor at all. When they were alive, they were cheated. Politicians cheat them, they use some of them as thugs to rig elections, and when they die, the cultists come in the night to steal their parts for ritual. Those of us who were buried long ago, when the cemetery was neat and good, have nothing to fear; our bodies are decayed already, but if they need bones, they can get a few from us. "

Just then, a Micra car painted in the city's yellow and brown taxi colours drove in. It was dirty and old and very creaky. It was hired to fetch a corpse. No siren, the people who brought the corpse drove in the same car as the dead. Even in death, they will not allow poverty to separate them. They must be Muslims, their dresses revealed them, and the way they wrapped the dead also did. Just a piece of white cloth, nothing expensive, a Muslim burial is very simple, less costly and less time-consuming. But what brought them to a cemetery, especially an abandoned one like Sango? What brought them here? In Ibadan, Muslims bury their dead in their compounds, not in cemeteries, although some have their cemeteries now. While those who brought the dead sob and sob, the dead spoke, "I'm brought here because I can't be buried in my family compound because of a family feud. My people are very poor, and some are cheating them. Anyway, I appreciate those who brought me here. No matter what happens, Aljana Firdaous is for me." At least in Nigeria, Sango cemetery is devoid of religious rancuor, Muslims and Christians cohabitate here. Who will wait any longer? Many dead were shouting and howling from their graves, complaining of neglect by the government in control. Who will dare move around? There is this fear that the leg may get stuck in a hole. There were fears that layers and layers of many dead are lying over one another because there is no space again. Amid the complaints, a very strident and insistent voice cried out: "For God's sake, let government close down this cemetery and stop bringing anybody here again. Or does government want us to protest on the streets?"

First Published in METRO

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Tunde Akande is both a journalist and pastor. He earned a Master's degree in Mass Communication from the University of Lagos.