It was a mix-up that left the Ojojo and Atase families in Ifowodo area of Oleh, Delta State filled with rage. It also put on the edge another family with a dead relative in the morgue of the Central Hospital, Oleh, Delta State on the edges.
When a corpse was handed over to the singing and dancing families at the morgue of Delta State government owned hospital on Friday, September 26, they thought they had the remains of a 90-year-old great great-grandmother, popularly called Malekete.
They took the remains to the family’s home, carried out all the rites for the burial of a woman who lived well and so long. Traditional Isoko music blared; gaily dressed family members, especially women danced to the rhythm. Their friends and well-wishers fanned them with ajuju (hand-fans) and they were ‘sprayed’ crisped naira notes. It was a celebration of the life and times of the nonagenarian.
Guests who came from all over the country were thoroughly entertained. They ate, they sang and they danced.
Afterwards, the ‘remains’ of the 90-year-old woman – who lived long enough to see her grandchildren become grandparents – were interred amidst more singing and dancing; pomp and pageantry.
The next day, a Saturday, an outing service was held at the Pentecostal Church of God, Oleh. Thereafter, those who came from far and wide started leaving the peaceful Isoko town.
But three days after the burial, a revelation that shook the family and Oleh was made. The body that the members of the Ojojo and Atase families buried was not that of ‘Malekete’ but that of another female.
“It rattled everybody and threw the families into a great confusion. The community and even the hospital management were aghast,” a source in the town revealed.
It was gathered that the path to the fatal mistake was laid when the morgue attendant mixed up the name tag of the nonagenarian with that of another female corpse brought about the same time to the mortuary.
A source at the mortuary said, “The attendant was a new person that was brought in just weeks earlier. He wasn’t familiar with the town and maybe the process at the morgue.”
Further checks revealed that one error pave the way for another when the family representative who was sent to prepare the corpse of the aged Oleh woman for burial merely handed over the cloths for the dressing to the attendant and asked a person who did not know the dead woman to perform the task.
The trend of mistakes was taken a notch higher when the family arrived the hospital late and in a desperate bid to meet up with time grabbed the coffin and dashed back to the venue of the ceremony without a peek inside the coffin.
“The problem really started with the family, so many divergent views on how to handle the burial and there were some persons who thought that knew better than others, including the elders of the family,” our source in the family added.
The tragedy continued when the family chose to skip an important rite in the burial process – opening of the casket to the public for loved ones and well-wishers to bid the late great-grandmother their final goodbyes.
“If they had allowed us to do that, someone would have noticed the mistake and we would have rectified it before it got to this embarrassing stage. But nobody saw the corpse.
We buried someone we thought was our sister, sand and danced and then returned home” another community member added.
The blunder was discovered on Monday – three days after the corpse had been entombed and most of the deceased’s family members who went for the burial had returned home.
“It started as a bad dream for the morgue attendant; one family came to prepare their corpse prior to the burial that was scheduled for a few days later. When they were showed their supposed corpse, they knew there had been a mix-up.”
After rummaging through the bodies in the morgue and not finding the corpse, it was concluded that another family must had taken the wrong body for burial. A quick check revealed the names and numbers of the two corpses that were switched. Malekete’s family members, who were invited, came to the hospital hoping to against hope that it wasn’t true. But a look at the stone-cold remains of the old woman confirmed the error.
In a desperate bid to hide the blunder from the public and other members of the community, it was learnt that the two families and the hospital management decided that it was best that the two corpses be should be switched in the dead of the night.
“It was at midnight that they now went to the grave to dig up the wrong corpse and switched it with that of the old woman, who we hope would now truly be allowed to rest in peace. It was past 01:00am before they finished the exchange,” revealed a member of the community who was aware of the sordid spectacle.
It was however learnt that the incident had thrown the hospital management and the affected family into confusion.
Although the Commissioner for Health in the state, Dr Joseph Otumara could not be reached for comment, a source in the hospital said at least one of the negligent staff members had been issued a queried by the management.”
Similarly, it was gathered that elders of the family which initially buried the wrong corpse are divided over whether to perform a second burial rite having discovered their mistake, since according to one of them, “The burial we did before was for another person.
“In a proper situation, we would need elders to consult the oracle and explain the implication of what has happened and what steps we need to take to appease the gods becausee this is an abomination,” a source in the town added.
Meanwhile, some residents of Oleh and environs who spoke with our reporter on the incident laid the blame on the doorstep of the family. Others said it was a pointer to how corpses are treated in public hospital like the Oleh Central Hospital.
“It is very important that people don’t leave the care of their deceased loved ones in the hands of people who don’t care about them. That is why most of our people,particularly the elderly ones, are averse to the idea of being kept in the mortuary when they die. For me, I have told my children that I must bury immediately, they should not keep me in the ‘fridge’,” a middle-aged woman said.
