I was in the company of about 4 people waiting for the
corpse to be interred, some grave yard discussions ensued. I always hated
discussions during interment but sometimes you can’t help being drag in to it.
One elderly person at the site was a loquacious but seemed knowledgeable opined
that cemeteries are grossly inadequate in Katsina but he was swiftly
interjected by one other person near me who I later found to be a very senior
land officer from the Ministry of lands. He gave us a complete run down of the
grave yards in the city and we all agreed that the number of the grave yards in
the city is sufficient even with the high frequency of death. Another person nearby sounded so sarcastic suggested
that the frequency at which people die in Katsina is occasioned by PDP
maladministration that subject the citizenry into abject poverty. No medicines
in our hospitals despite the lies that have been going round on certain
category of people receiving free medicines, no portable drinking water, no
food, no nothing! But I was not interested in those PDP escapades as the
internment was rounded up with individual prayers for the repose of the dead
and for the bereaved the fortitude to bear the loss. We went out of the
cemetery just like we came in, minding our steps so as not to put your feet on
certain graves. This is so because the graves are jam parked and clustered
together. There is no any form of planning as graves are dug according to the
availability of the space. Most of the times bereaved families spend a large
chunk of time looking for available space to bury their dead. This is even more
difficult if you have to bury a corpse in the night. My aunt died about two
weeks ago as we were about to break our fast but for reasons best known to my
uncles we had to bury her that night. We
therefore trooped to the new Dantakum grave yard at about 9 pm with more than
half of us holding different types of lamps and torch lights of different shapes and
sizes and of course of different
illuminations. We really had a difficult time as we had to go with virtually
everything and most important we spent considerable amount of time fretting for
a space to dig the grave because it is not just readily available. This is not
good enough.
As it is now, the 3 major cemeteries in the city namely
Danmarna, Dantakum and the new Dantakuma near the general hospital are full to
the brim as such new ones must be opened and in order to have organised
cemeteries the following measures must be put into consideration: A Cemetery management committee be set by the
State government and be charged with the responsibility of managing the grave
yards we have all over the state or local government as the case may be. The
employment of skilled labourers for the preparation of graves this is not only
to ensure that graves are dug in the correct location and at the correct shapes
and depth, but also to relieve bereaved family of having to dig the grave for a
recently dead relative. The new cemetery must be designed in such a way that
even motor vehicle could pass through the grave yard without marching the
graves and footpaths properly delineated. The graves are to be designed in such
an order that will portray planning and orderliness, a systematic layout of
graves in rows so that in the event that it is full we can start from the
beginning and re- use the graves without the fear of having to come through
fresh one. Some facilities such as bore
wells, pails and buckets, some digging implements, flood lights, cemetery
registers must be provided. I think the onus now lies with the State Government
to let us have this one. Let this one be a legacy the PDP will bequeath to us.
