BBC News, Kaduna
For more than 50 years, a family has dedicated themselves to caring for the largest cemetery in the northern Nigerian city of Kaduna – much to the appreciation of other residents who don’t like dealing with the dead.
Until a few weeks ago, they did this without any formal pay – digging graves, washing corpses and tending to the vast cemetery, receiving only small donations from mourners for their work.
The large Tudun Wada cemetery was set aside by the authorities for the city’s Muslim residents a century ago.
The Abdullahi family got involved in the 1970s when two brothers – Ibrahim and Adamu – started working there.
The two siblings now lie underground in the cemetery, and their sons have become the chief guardians of the cemetery.
“Their teachings to us, their children, was that God loves service and will reward us for it even if we don’t get any worldly gain,” Ibrahim Abdullahi’s eldest son Magaji told the BBC when asked why they decided to continue as unpaid undertakers.
The 58-year-old is now in charge of Tudun Wada – pastoral operations and 18 staff members or until recently – volunteers.
He and his two younger cousins - Abdullahi, 50, and Aliyu, 40, (sons of Adamu Abdullahi) – are three full-time workers, all reporting by 07:00 for a 12-hour shift, seven days a week.
They must always be on call because, according to Muslim rites, a burial must be organized a few hours after someone’s death.
Magaji tries to get a call on his cell phone, either directly from a relative or an imam – all religious officials in town have his number.
“Many people have our numbers and as soon as someone dies, we get a call and immediately get down to business,” he says.
One of the trio goes to take care of the corpse, which may include washing it and wrapping it in a shroud.
The body is measured and these details are sent to the others so that the grave can be dug.
This can take about an hour – with two people taking turns digging 6 feet (1.8 m) into the ground – sometimes longer when it’s in the rocky area of the cemetery.
I can dig a dozen graves in one day – hard work in the Kaduna heat.
“Today alone we dug up eight graves, and it’s not even noon yet, some days are like that,” says Abdullahi, who started working at the cemetery at the age of 20.
The relatives lived through very stressful moments – especially during the religious violence when tensions between Christians and Muslims flare up in the city. The two communities usually live on opposite sides of the Kaduna River.
“We had several religious conflicts in Kaduna, but the one I remember the most was the one in the early 1990s. A lot of people were killed,” says Magaji.
“We went around collecting corpses and taking them off the streets.”
Muslims were taken to Tudun Wada in the north of the city, and Christians to cemeteries in the southern suburbs.
“Personally, it was such a challenging time and I wasn’t at work for a long time, but it helped strengthen my resolve to keep going,” he says.
Usually, while the team is digging the grave, the imam in the local mosque announces during one of the five daily prayers that the funeral will be offered.
Many worshipers then go to where the body is prepared for prayer – it is then taken to a cemetery for burial, often crowded with mourners.
When it is near the grave, the shrouded body is lowered – it is covered with a layer of sticks and broken clay pots as a sign of respect. The grave is then filled to form a slightly raised bed.
After the ceremony and before the mourners leave, the gravediggers appeal for donations.
This is usually done by 72-year-old Inuwa Mohammed, the cemetery’s oldest worker, who explains the importance of the Abdullahi family to the community.
He worked with cousin fathers: “They were amazing people who loved what they did and instilled that altruistic behavior in their children.”
The little money raised will sometimes buy lunch for the crew – but never enough for anything else. In order to survive, the family also has a small farm where they grow food.
Graves are recycled after 40 years, meaning soil isn’t a big problem – but maintenance is.
“There is a lot missing at the moment – we don’t have enough equipment to work, and we don’t have good insurance,” says Aliyu, the youngest of the relatives who has been working there for 10 years.
He explains how part of the wall collapsed, allowing the scavengers to steal the grave markers.
Some of the graves have metal plaques inscribed with the name and date of birth and death – although many do not because Islamic clerics discourage ostentation. Most of them are just outlined with stones and bricks or sticks.
In any case, relatives remember the location of everyone buried in the cemetery and can direct people if they have forgotten the location of a relative’s grave.
After the BBC’s recent visit to the cemetery, they saw a dramatic change in fortunes.
The new president of the local council, whose office oversees the construction site, decided to put them on the payroll.
“They deserve it, given the huge amount of work they do every day,” Rayyan Hussain told the BBC.
“Graves are the final homes for all of us and people who do this kind of hard work deserve to be paid, so my office would pay them as long as I’m president.”
Magaji confirms that staff have started receiving their monthly salary for the first time:
- the five oldest, including him, get 43,000 naira ($28; £22.50)
- the others, including Abdullahi and Aliyu, get 20,000 naira ($13; £10.50).
It is well below the national minimum wage of $45 a month, but Mr Hussain says he hopes to increase their allowance “over time”.
He says it is unfortunate that the previous leaders of the local committees have been leaving the cemetery for years.
He plans to repair parts of the fence, install solar lights and increase security, the president adds.
“I am also building a room at the cemetery where corpses could be washed and prepared for burials, before all that had to be done from home.”
For the Abdullahi family, it’s all a welcome investment – and Magaji hopes to ensure that one of his 23 children will one day become a cemetery caretaker.
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