The nostalgia feeling of remembering all the preparation and execution of my grandmother’s burial will leave one gasping for breath. Death seems like an occasion that ought to be celebrated with a lot of expenses and financial prowess. As I walked down memory lane: my grandmother died at 105 years her demise was meant to be a celebration of life. Her death was a call to emerge from whatever hole, we had submerged, her Children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren were expected to converge in affluence. The grand funeral was in our homeland. We held several meetings with all her kinsmen, to ensure proper planning and showcase financial buoyancy. The expense of a burial celebration in the eastern part of Nigeria can be heartbreaking if the financial capability is lacking. The requirement by both the tradition and religion to bury a Presbyterian can make one lose their temper.
Notwithstanding, various criteria needs to be fulfilled as part of custom and practice. There are expectations from children, grandchildren to perform on her burial day, by and large, in the polygamous family where we had other ceremonies that needed to be attended like the ime uche (retirement ceremony), igwa mang (the initiation into youthful activities) iruuke (the christening of compatriots) the traditional ibu nmayi weddings. At the end of the day, everyone in the family was obliged to own one uniform for each of the said ceremonies because one way or the other either by proxy one is connected to each of these ceremonies, in summary, everyone in the family had up to six different uniforms which we do have to sew in bauble laces and fashionable wears to impress the village elites, at the same time while we worried on how to buy, we also gave in tremendous pains on how to sow, tailors were late on delivery during Christmas in Abiriba. We weep while paying for common sewing, paying much as even twice to have a chance of sewing one at the end it was repugnant, coping with the stress, conducting charismatic church purgatory for the dead. Then, I ask myself if these trouble of sowing uniforms for just a day burial in a community where there are security challenges, where there is evident short of water supply, where there is insufficient electricity supply, where a child dies of malnutrition and hunger, were malaria kills a child concurrently.
Where an old frail woman who doesn’t have health insurance, doesn’t have a choice of sound medical service. Are black African\’s so naively conservative in practicing old cultures when there is an uprising poverty level. Do Africans need to engage in exorbitant cultures when they should be hell-bent to eradicate the monster called poverty? Do we need to sow custom dresses of bauble laces while burying our dead?
In my essay title ‘‘extermination of exorbitant cultural values in the face of Social/ Economic hardship in the contemporary Black African society’’. I will be arguing, highlighting, raising critical questions in the quest to seek a lasting resolution to the most overwhelming problem in the black African community.