Introduction
Elaborate funerals are the kind of funerals that we are familiar with in southern and central Nigeria. They are more commonly called expensive funerals. The term elaborate is preferred here because it better depicts the process of burying the dead in these places. The funerals are elaborate because they are not rushed. Much time is devoted to raising money to finance the project (it is, indeed, treated as a project). The funeral takes place weeks and sometimes months after death. It is associated with what is often called protocol. Relations of the deceased are consulted and their permissions sought. Priests and friends are consulted and convenient dates chosen. Bands, caterers and others offering other services are booked well in advance. Committees of friends are formed. Uniforms are chosen and sewn. On the funeral day, relatively short periods of prayers are followed by much longer periods of pomp and pageantry, and feasting. Basically, because funerals are elaborate, they cost a lot of money to execute. Thus, expensiveness is embedded in elaborateness. Elaborate funeral is therefore a more appropriate term than expensive funeral.
Following the much publicised funeral of the mother of Obinna Iyiegbu (aka Obi Cubana) in — 2021, the issue of funerals in Nigeria, with especial focus on Igboland, featured prominently in social media discourse. The prevailing view was denunciatory. Questions were raised about the source of the wealth of Iyiegbu and his friends. Many critics were concerned about the cost of the funeral. They stressed that it was unduly expensive, and opined that money squandered on funerals should have been spent on investment in businesses and persons.
Some of the denunciatory views about funerals are made out of sympathy for the poor who struggle financially to bury their dead. Thus, we often hear statements like the following: “Does it make sense to borrow heavily to do expensive funerals?” “Many business persons don’t recover after burying their parents or spouses.” “Does it make sense to sell land and other valuable assets just to finance funerals for your loved ones?” “Are you sure your late father would be happy that your livelihood was threatened by the expenses you incurred to give him a so-called befitting burial?”
Let’s use two commentaries on Obi Cubana’s mother’s funeral to illustrate this line of thinking. In an op-ed in The Premium Times, notable singer, actress and journalist, Onyeka Onwenu, was very critical of the funeral organized by the Anambra-born hotelier. Ms Onwenu made all the expected concessions to Cubana: every person has the right to decide how to spend his “hard-earned money”; no law was broken; and society expects the living to organize elaborate funerals for the dead. Then she added: “I am uncomfortable with lavish display of wealth on any occasion, especially in a time of hardship and lack for most others. The burial of Obi Cubana’s mother was not only lavish, it was obscene and insensitive” (see “Obi Cubana’s lavish burial of his mother, by Onyeka Onwenu”, in Premium Times, 27 July 2021). Another critic, Ozodinukwe Okenwa, described the funeral as “a colourful rich occasion featuring the mundane, the obscene and the weird, all embedded in debauchery” (see “Obi Cubana’s Mother of All Burials By Ozodinukwe Okenwa”, Saharareporters, 26 July 2021). He lamented that “an otherwise melancholic occasion was effortlessly transformed into a carnival fraught with obscenity.” Okenwa conceded that Cubana had probably been a philanthropist in his community. However, he added that Cubana needed to do more. In his own words,
“[T]he Oba show of ‘shaming’ money or poverty bore a hallmark of misplaced priorities. Obi Cubana may be generous in his dealings with his people but there are many social challenges in his village and town awaiting his attention. Intervening and making things better or life more bearable for the rural folks ought to be his primary preoccupation.”
The focus of this essay is not the funeral of the mother of Obinna Iyiegbu (Obi Cubana). Rather, it is to interrogate the prevailing views about elaborate funerals in Nigeria. As its title indicates, the essay deals mainly with the economic implications of elaborate funerals, and will try to complicate the view that large scale expenses for funerals are wasteful. In the next two subheadings, however, the essay touches upon other views on elaborate funerals, especially those espoused in the essays of Ms Onwenu and Mr. Okenwa.
The Influence of Tradition
It is believed by some of us that the elaborate funerals we witness today are a recent phenomenon. This is implied in Okenwa’s assertion that “an otherwise melancholic occasion was transformed into a carnival.” There is need to seriously modify this view. Many critics of elaborate funerals argue that the dead do not benefit from it. They ignore the reality that, as Onyeka Onwenu admitted in respect of her mum, the dying wish to be buried elaborately and entreat their children to make sacrifices to do so. Traditionally, it is believed that failure to fulfil this obligation to the dead, or to do so with stinginess, could make the dead punish the living. Despite the adherence to Christianity by the bulk of southern Nigerians today, the fear of punishment by unhappy ancestors persists.
Indeed, in the tradition of non-Muslim communities of southern Nigeria, funerals are occasions for both sobriety and jollity, for both melancholy and cheerfulness; for both weeping and dancing; for both holiness and sinfulness. There must be something in human psychology that makes the same person that is restrained from harming herself when the coffin is being lowered into the grave to seamlessly transform into a showy dancer shortly after the interment. This is not a recent phenomenon. Traditionally, the children of a deceased person are required to make sacrifices to ensure that the funeral is befitting: that expensive rituals are performed, that solemn rituals are followed by joyous activities, and that food and drinks for guests are adequate. Thus, while society blames spouses and children for not mourning properly (not shaving, for returning to base a few days after interment, etc), it also blames them for not exerting themselves financially to honour their deceased spouses or parents. This practice and the philosophy behind it are what we inherited from our forebears. Thus to organize an elaborate funeral today is to keep faith with our tradition.
The right to choose
Critics of elaborate funerals concede, as shown above, that every person has a right to decide how to spend their money. Without being said, this position does not include freedom to use personal wealth to break the law. But outside breaking the law, the critics condemned spending personal wealth in a lavish, obscene and sexually immoral way (Onwenu talked about girls being hired for the rich, and Okenwa frowned at alleged “debauchery”). If not questioned, views like this can lead social engineers into temptation – the temptation of making laws to limit the right to choose so as to uphold moral principles that the larger society has not found it necessary to elevate to laws. It is thus necessary to insist that there should be no statutory limits on how to spend private money on funerals and other celebrations, and, secondly, that there should be no statutory requirement for rich people to become philanthropists. Note that in the quotation above, Okenwa asserted that “there are many social challenges … awaiting [the] attention [of any rich person that is wont to spend lavishly on funerals]. Intervening and making things better or life more bearable for the rural folks ought to be his primary preoccupation.” It is important to debunk this view. It is not the “primary occupation” of any person that is not a public officer to make life “more bearable” for others. Excluding candidates for sainthood, the primary occupation of any person is to earn a living, ensure the survival of those he or she brought into the world, and, subject to the laws of the land, pursue happiness. Helping others is desirable, but it is not a primary duty of any person in his or her private capacity and should not be a statutory obligation.
Wasteful spending as stimulus
How do economies grow and develop? I’m not an economist and, thus, not in a position to give a detailed and comprehensive answer and with the right technical terms. From the little I know about the subject, however, one of the things that stimulate economic growth is the desire of some people to spend more than most others and having the ability to do so. Indeed, there is something in human nature that makes some persons want to stand out among their peers. Thorstein Veblen called it conspicuous consumption. (I know that Veblen was something of a socialist and that he deplored conspicuous consumption.) Many of us have scruples about conspicuous consumption and deplore it. But we should acknowledge that if the desire to meet the demands of the wasteful leads to increased production of goods and services and enables more people to be employed, the morally deplorable waste would have the positive effect of producing economic growth in the society. If new technologies are invented to produce more goods and services, wasteful spending would have led to development. I don’t think it is necessary to cite J. M. Keynes on this matter to enable the reader to get my drift.
Marketing scholars and practitioners probably have several theories to explain what I have in mind here. In a society where there is much inequality in wealth, one of the unofficial ways of reducing the gap between the rich and poor is to encourage the rich spend their money, especially within their own country or locality, and especially on goods and services produced in the country or locality. To do this, marketers use advertisements, motivation speeches and the like to try to make the rich enjoy their money. If their effort to encourage the rich to live big is successful, and if living big entails large scale expenditure on a variety of locally produced goods, effective demand and economic growth get a boost. Thus, living in luxury, or wasteful spending, is not only desired by the rich, but also by the poor that have positioned themselves to benefit from wasteful spending.
Funerals as wealth redistributor
On the basis of the preambles above, I venture to say that funerals in Igboland and other parts of central and southern Nigeria are a veritable way of unofficially redistributing wealth in favour of the poor. Permit me to clarify terms here. Official ways of redistributing wealth are defined here as measures taken by government to bridge the inequality gap. They include progressive taxation and free or heavily subsidized education and health care programmes. Unofficial ways are defined here as measures made by individuals, either deliberately and directly or indirectly while trying to fulfil a societal obligation, to help those that are financially less able than themselves.
Our focus here is on unofficial redistribution. Unofficial redistribution takes place deliberately and directly when the rich do things like awarding scholarships, educating the children of relations, setting up people in business, sending people abroad, paying hospital bills of the needy, and funding the funerals of parents of poor relations and friends. An important characteristic of this kind of spending is that they are basically voluntary. There is a customary expectation but no customary injunction on anybody to be philanthropic.
Unlike gestures like the award of scholarships and training of a sister’s children, to spend on funerals, and to spend heavily on them if you are rich, is a customary injunction. Thus, as a source of wealth redistribution, as a stimulus to growth and development, it is a more regular and thus more reliable factor of wealth distribution than voluntary redistribution.
One very important way in which elaborate funerals help to redistribute wealth is to bring money from the diaspora to Nigeria. There are statistics on remittances to Nigeria, but none on the proportion that is spent on funerals. But the proportion must be considerable. Among the Nigerian diaspora are a large number of persons that grew up in Nigeria. The number is large and is increasing. For a large number of Nigerians living abroad, attending the funerals of relations is the only reason they still come home. Much is expected of diasporans. They know this and try to impress. Thus, funerals of relations of persons living abroad are usually expensive. It is reasonable to conclude that funerals are a veritable reason for the transfer of wealth from the diaspora to Nigeria.
From both the diaspora and urban areas in Nigeria, elaborate funerals have been an important factor of territorial wealth transfer between urban and rural areas. Most of those that can afford elaborate funerals are urban based, in Nigeria and the diaspora. For many today, only traditional weddings and funerals bring them back to their villages. Recently, many traditional weddings are done in cities and few diasporans bother to come home again for weddings. Funerals remain a village affair, and thus an important pull factor in the redistribution of wealth in favour of rural areas.
Habitual fault finders would say that expenditure on funerals are ephemeral- that the multitude is fed for a couple of days and then left as poor as they had been. This thinking ignores the sustainable change that funerals and other wasteful expenditure bring regularly to those that provide goods and services used at funerals. In the 1970s and 1980s, the funerals as well as weddings people of my generation witnessed did not rely on professional caterers, event planners, and masters of ceremony. Relations, neighbours and friends provided such services. Today they are hired in most funerals. Large sums of money, sometimes in seven digits, are paid by the very rich today to celebrity caterers and emcees. To make the venues of funerals befitting, money is spent on carpenters, masons, painters and other artisans in the construction industry. While food and drinks provide temporary satisfaction to those that consume them, the monies spent in buying them last longer in the hands of the persons that receive them. New dresses and shoes are acquired for funerals. Vehicles are hired and repaired for the purpose. Printers get their share through the production of brochures and banners. Funerals are also a veritable source of work for musicians. By spending on traders, artisans and other service providers, organisers of elaborate funerals help to boost effective demand in society, cause money to circulate and empower some persons with money that can be used, not just for feeding, but other, long-lasting needs. Imagine how many persons in the cattle business benefited from the funeral of Obi Cubana’s mother – cattle owners, brokers, transporters, butchers, suya makers, etc. Imagine how much money that musicians and printers made. Imagine how much money that was redistributed to transporters, artisans in the construction industry, tailors, traders, beer distributors and other business persons in the Oba area.
Another advantage of redistribution at elaborate funerals is that the relationship between the person funding the funeral and the persons that get empowered by his expenditure is transactional. In theory and in most cases in practice, a transactional relationship is a relationship of equals. Nothing is given free, and no party is submissive to the other. Each party retains their respect. Thus, it is more dignifying to earn your children’s school fees by providing catering services at a funeral than to become submissive to a rich person who, out of pity, awards scholarships to your children. It is more dignifying to pay your hospital bill with money paid for your service as a printer of a funeral brochure than to receive it as a gift from a sympathetic wealthy person. In the same vein, it is more dignifying if a musician that wants to start a block industry earns the money for the project by performing at the funeral of a rich person’s daughter than do so by doing ranka dede to a benevolent rich person.
Coda
I concede that there can be too much of anything that is good. So there is room to legitimately criticize some elaborate funerals. Especially when it gravely disrupts the life and businesses of others that are not associated with it. I concede that some persons are ruined financially by spending beyond their means at funerals. Indeed, I admit that this is irresponsible. But we should be consoled by the awareness that many persons are empowered by the irresponsible spending of a few. I concede that the desire to acquire the means to organize elaborate funerals can lead some persons into crime. But we should acknowledge that the same desire is also likely to make others work harder at legitimate pursuits and become innovators. Finally, I concede that the Sixth Commandment is often violated at funerals. But I know that some sinners, not only violators of that Commandment, become repentant after listening to sermons delivered at funerals.
If you can tolerate the exhibitionist lifestyle of the nouveau riche, if you are persuaded that wasteful spending by the rich can make money go round, you should not be eager to condemn “obscene” funerals like that of Obi Cubana’s mother.
Okechukwu Edward Okeke is a Professor of History at Federal University Otuoke, Nigeria. He can be reached through okekeoe@fuotuoke.edu and okeyedwardokeke@yahoo.com
