Expensive caskets and a cheap coffin.

Death is a necessary end. However, the social status of a person is often
reflected in the way he is buried, writes GBENGA ADENIJI

Consummate English playwright,
William Shakespeare, wittingly creates
an imagery of the social gap between
the rich and the poor when he said
“When beggars die, there are no
comets seen; The heavens themselves
blaze forth the death of princes.”
This assertion is no less true when one
considers the mega bucks the crème de la crème of the society lavish on the funeral rites of their dead. The social gap between the rich and the poor first manifests itself in the choice of casket.
The least casket sold by one of the
leading funeral outfits in the country
costs N200,000. It is a two-step casket, imbued with flat top and fixed with a bar handle; It is lined with silk material and foam.
There is also a Semi Dome casket with a fixed bar handle which costs N300,000.
The priciest is the Royal Cedar Dome
fixed with a swing bar handle. It sells
for N550,000. Some of the features that make this casket special are the wood it is made of and the use of velvet material as its lining. There is another type of casket which, when aided by a device, lifts the corpse from the bottom for people to see during the wake and returns it to the base of the casket after the ceremony.
An attendant at the coffin shop, who
refused to be named, said irrespective
of the price, all caskets will decompose
after some time because they are made of wood.
According to him, customers prefer
caskets made of mahogany and cedar
woods because they are of high quality.
“The liking for caskets made with these woods is to show class because not every member of the society can afford to bury their dead in style. Our style of burial is expensive and our target audience is the rich,” he said.
Besides the prices for the caskets, rich
individuals also have to part with a
handsome amount for a funeral hearse, pall bearers, mobile music band and transportation.
Findings showed that the brands of cars used for the hearse include Volvo, Ford Everest Jeep, Cadillac, Mercedes Benz, Nissan Pathfinder Jeep, R500 4MATIC Benz, Limousine and Lincoln Navigator.
The price ranges from N90,000 to
N250,000. The Benz hearse is the most expensive.
For the pall bearers, about N90,000 is
charged per day. The pall bearers
consist of six men who will not only
clean the corpse for the burial but also
convey the casket to its final resting
place. The same amount is charged per day by the saxophonists, drummers and trumpeters (itinerant band) who will charge the milieu with ear-soothing songs befitting of a funeral. The transportation fee is usually N50,000 and could be more, if the distance is farther.
These charges for the funeral services
differ from state to state. On the
average, the total package is between
N600,000 and N1.2m.
It was learnt that majority of the
affluent also consult the undertakers to handle services ranging from
embalming, cremation, security,
placing of obituary announcement in
newspapers, printing of burial posters
and programme booklets, catering,
renting of canopies, chairs and tables,
and the purchase of burial plots.
A casket seller on the popular Odunlami Street, Lagos Island, who identified himself as Olu, told our correspondent that the poor cannot afford the prices of the caskets.
He explained that people who are not
rich buy coffins worth N20,000 or
N50,000.
He said, “For the poor, there is no
elaborate funeral service. They may
some times get a live band or a one-
man band to spice up the ceremony.
But in all, one will notice that
everything is done with a small budget.
Some do not even go to that extent.
Once the dead is buried, that is all.”
The casket seller further said the
majority of those who cannot afford
plots in government-owned or privately-
run burial sites prefer to bury their
loved ones in their homes. “Though they will say that it is because
they want to continually feel the
memory of the deceased if they are
buried within the compound, I know
that the best place to bury a dead
person is at a well-established cemetery where families can go to lay wreaths and offer prayers,” he said.
In the light of the exorbitant fees of
vaults in both government-owned and
privately-administered cemeteries, only the rich can pay for it.
For instance, a one-chamber vault sells for N350, 000 in a cemetery run by one of the local government councils in Lagos State. Two-chamber vaults cost N400, 000 while a three-chamber vault is N450, 000. All the vaults are without the price of the marble to construct a tombstone. Marble costs an additional N350, 000.
“The price for ‘ordinary burial’ is N50,
000. We only allocate space and ask the customer to bury the dead person
there. If he is not back within two
months to buy a vault for reburial, we
may not be able to identify the exact
part of the ground since rain could have washed it away. He also cannot be a frequent visitor to the cemetery like those who bought vaults because the buried person does not have a slab for identification,” a worker in the
cemetery who pleaded anonymity told
our correspondent.
Private cemeteries are indeed no-go
areas for the poor. Besides being
extremely expensive, the vaults are
modernly built in choice locations and
consistently placed close to nature with lush lawns, flowers and trees.
In one of the popular private burial
domains situated in Lagos, the rich
spend between N1m and N70m to buy
vaults for their dead.
There is the Single Vault which costs
N1m; Double Vault (which can
accommodate two persons both at the
base and upper parts) costs between
N2m and N2.7m. The Special Medium
Vault sells for N10m. The Special Low
Density Vaults are in three categories.
Category one is between N20m and
N25m and category two goes for
between N35m and N40m.
The category three is in a class of its
own. It is like a gated chamber which,
besides lodging the dead person, also
serves as a place where family
members can sit and chat as they look
at the pictures of the departed adorning the walls. In later years, any relation of the deceased can be buried within. Its price ranges from N50m to N70m.
Notwithstanding the fees of the vaults,
the prices for tombstone construction
are separate. They range from
N500,000 to N1.5m.
The Double Vault in both marble and
granite are more expensive , while blue pearl granite for half slab is N700,000, full slab is N900,000.
Speaking on the trend, Coordinator,
Conference of Islamic Organisations, Mr. Shuaib Abdullahi, said a burial rite is a very serious issue in Islam because it is part of the the religious obligations of a Muslim.
He said, “The spiritual implication is
that if he has led a good life, we don’t
delay the burial so that he will
immediately begin to reap his reward.
Also, if the person was bad, we don’t
need to delay either because he or she
is bound to reap his/her reward. We do
not use a casket for burial in Islam. We
only use plywood to properly protect
the sides and wrap the dead in white
garment in readiness for burial.”
A clergyman, Raymond Arese, also said the Holy Bible lays emphasis more on when a person is saved than when he dies and as such, less emphasis should be placed on burials.

SOURCE: www.punchng.com/feature/even-in-death-all-men-are-not-equal/

Like it or not in death all men are equal