By its controversial burial adversary, IPOB seems to have reached a dead end — and here every pun is intended!
But purporting to lecture — more like hector — the Igbo on how to bury their dead, IPOB appears essaying a handshake that reaches straight at the elbow! Again, that is raiding the dead zone, to reach the dead end.
Yet, but for its popularity — or notoriety? — plaguing its way, the IPOB funeral advisory is not unreasonable, though IPOB clearly over-reaches itself by its threat against mortuary facilities in the South East.
Emma Powerful, the IPOB spokesperson that is often carried away by his own bombasts, struck a rather reasonable tune this time round: “Our people have turned burials into a carnival and asking families to pay levies or debt for their dead ones. This is an abomination and must be stopped forthwith,” he declared — hardly unreasonable.
Not so the follow-up threat, if the Igbo didn’t stick to IPOB’s new diktat of bury-your-dead-within-three-days: “This strategy may include compelling the shutdown of so many mortuaries littered all over our land. The only dead bodies that can be allowed to stay longer in the mortuary are those in court or under police investigation.”
After its flailing and failing Monday sit-at-homes, this is another messianic nonsense IPOB would be hard pressed to push. Moving against mortuary facilities is like the hare-brained Monday sit-at-homes: its sweet surface is agitation and propaganda. But its bitter core is economic, badly hurting the pocket.
If IPOB feels it can move from one virulent attack on the pocket to another, though under the not unreasonable pitch of having more decent and less costly burials, it has well and truly reached a dead end. You can’t continue to play false messiah over people’s livelihood and expect something terrible not to give.
Indeed, the feedback suggests the people would just ignore the new diktat with the contempt it deserves, just as they had ignored IPOB’s earlier decree to stop eating beef, simply because the Fulani breed and supply cows. Aside from the vital protein value of beef, many of the cows are owned by Igbo merchants, though many of them engage Fulani expertise in cattle breeding. So, those guys would kiss their livelihood goodbye just because of IPOB’s propaganda?
If IPOB attempts any crude campaign against funeral homes and their mortuary facilities, it can only harvest further notoriety, which only fastens its looming irrelevance.
For IPOB, it’s not the best of times — and the mortuary campaign is dark but fitting metaphor. It’s a wilful, if fretful, way to reach a dead end. About time!