Kinsmen of late Joseph Wayas, Nigeria’s second republic President of the Senate, say they may commence the burial rites of the deceased without his remains, after Nigerian authorities appear not to be willing to ferry the corpse back to his native Obanliku LGA, Cross River State, two years after he died in a London hospital.
Sylvanus Anyawho and Isaac Henyete, President and Secretary respectively of Bassang Nation Union, Wayas’ indigenous community association, in a communique sighted by www.calitown.com, said the decision to carry out burial rites without the remains of the deceased, was taken on February 2, 2024, on the heels of an extraordinary meeting held about the burial of the former senate president.
“We’ve waited for two years for late Wayas’ remains to be brought to us for burial. After several fruitless meetings both at home and in Abuja, we’re left with no other option than commence the traditional rites”, they said.
The communique however maintains that, “it is sacrilegious to bury our dead outside our ancestral home else dire consequences await anybody or group of persons who will contemplate in their wildest imagination to do that to Wayas. We therefore, demand for his remains to be brought home and laid to rest in his home town in line with our custom and tradition,” they added.
In March 2023, a competent source inside government exclusively told us that “Governor Ben Ayade (then CRS governor), had released about N200m to a carefully picked committee for the burial of Joseph Wayas and from what I hear, Wayas Jnr (the son of the deceased) presented a bill of 100 thousand UK pounds as what the family has spent on their dad’s medical bill and asked the burial committee to give him the money. The committee refused. The committee then insisted to the man’s son that it will nominate a committee member and one medical doctor, to join him to the hospital in London where the man’s remains are kept so as to conclude arrangements and bring the body to Nigeria for burial. Jnr reportedly refused.”
Angered by how Wayas Jnr has carried himself in relation to burial arrangements and the burial proper, most people have withdrawn participation in Wayas’ burial and the threat to conduct burial rites without his remains, may be the icing on the cake for a man, dead but not resting.