DEATH must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one’s head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no tomorrow. To forget time, to forget life, to be at peace.”
This popular saying by Irish playwright and novelist, Oscar Wilde, aptly captures the story of Ebony Vaults as well as Vaults and Garden, two exotic cemeteries in Ikoyi, Lagos. The peaceful and tranquil ambience may truly make a living man wish to want to take up a permanent residence in the vaults.
The entrance to the private burial vault has huge intricately constructed black metal gates. The space in front of the fence is dotted with well manicured flowers and ornamental plants. Stationed at the front gate were two uniformed private guards that politely ask one his or her mission there. And like every private ‘home’, a visitor must have a strong and genuine reason to be there before you are allowed in.
The expansive compound of Ebony Vaults Ikoyi, Lagos, in taste, architectural design and arrangement, is only comparable with a palatial home of a very rich and influential figure or the palace of a first-class monarch.
Inside the premises, one is immediately drawn to the pleasant green, bright and soft colours from the flowers and ornamental plants all around. The story is the same at the Vaults and Gardens, where an imposing fountain ceaselessly gushes out clean and clear water from its underbelly.
Though a final resting place for the dead, all around, the overwhelming colour is green, the colour of life. The sections are well carved out with walkways made with interlocking stones. And, probably in an effort to truly manifest life, beautiful peacocks spread their multi-coloured tails to welcome you to the beautiful surrounding.
The irony about the Lagos private burial vaults is that everything about them, rather portray death, showcases life: the fountains, the beautiful peacocks, the green wall creepers, the well-demarcated and manicured lawns, are all testaments to life.
In their life time, the rich had exotic streets named after them. In death, the trend is maintained, as they continue to enjoy the rare opportunity to own choice alleys named after them in private vaults.
However, in the midst of the beautiful expression, you are suddenly woken up to the reality that below the lawns are eminent personalities that once lived and enjoyed life, but are now oblivious of nature and the beauty they are surrounded with.
The serenity, orderliness, show of affluence and dignity that one feels within the private vaults’ environment is a sharp contrast to what obtains at public cemeteries across the city. Indeed, it is almost like a continuation of the iron steel divide between the rich and the poor, even in the land of the dead.
Like a community segregated by class and status, the Ikoyi Cemetery, a public cemetery, is just about a distance of less than 100 meters away from the private burial vaults. From afar, as you approach the cemetery, you begin to have an eerie feeling of being in the land of the dead.
The walkway, which in the real sense of the word, are not what they are called, are bare, with no manicured lawns, orderliness and decency that reign supreme at the private vaults.
At the entrance, in place of the guards in neatly-cut uniform that welcome you into the private vaults, about three attendants, one dressed in a buba and sokoto that have seen better days, while the other two wore shirts and trousers of different colours, sat down listening to music from a small transistor radio.
Two of them sat on an old and unkempt grave, while the third gyrated to the music from the airwave. Not even the eerie feeling of death around matters to them.
All around, the graves bore old cenotaphs, while some with cracks, some of the blocks used on the graves are gradually disintegrating with age. There was little or no space between the graves. One of the attendants, who gave his name as Monday, gave a rundown of the cost of burying the dead at Ikoyi Cemetery.
To build a ‘permanent tomb’ with blocks costs N250, 000, while double costs N480, 000. However, they could also bury one in what he referred to as ‘temporary grave’ for N45, 000. According to him, what that means is that the body would likely not spend much time at the cemetery before it would be removed to make way for a fresh corpse.
In Africa, many attach so much importance to the final resting place. It is this desire to have a dignified final resting place that makes many to pay huge sums of money to get choice spots for themselves and loved ones at the private vaults.
However, in recent times, it has gone beyond mere seeking a decent burial place for one’s loved ones. For many, where you are buried or where you bury your loved ones has become a status symbol.
The success of the private vaults as a business has shown that affluent Nigerians do not just want to live big while alive, but continue to ‘live big’ even in death. They want the air of affluence to continue to hover over them wherever they are laid to rest long after they are gone.
To achieve this, they spend huge chunks of money for a slice of the burial space in these private vaults. The demand for private burial vaults is so much now that the management of Vaults and Gardens has expanded to acquire the Victoria Court Cemetery in Ajah, Lagos.
While for as little as N45,000, a dead man can find a space to be laid, even if it is temporary, at the public cemeteries, the least price for a space at a private burial vault within the Ikoyi area is about N3.2 million. The price, our correspondent found out, could go as high as N60 million, depending on the personality being buried.
It should, however, be noted that this excludes all other expenses, like the aso ebi and owambe party. The burial vaults at the private vaults are divided into high, medium and low density areas. You also have the single, double and special vaults. A special double burial vault could go for between N30 million and N50 million. There are additional charges for things like building of tombstone, depending on whether it is marble, granite or red bricks. Other services include usage of hall, naming of alley, re-opening of vaults and others.
Despite the high cost of acquiring spaces at the private vaults, a large chunk of the burial spaces available has already been taken. The idea of acquiring vaults and kept for years, has become also common. At Vaults and Garden that became operational in 2006, there are vaults that had been acquired many years back that were still empty.
Affluent Nigerians spend a fortune to maintain their standard of living; now they equally spend same to acquire their final resting places. At the relatively new Ebony Vaults, Ikoyi, all the spaces in the yet-to-be developed vaults have already been acquired.
At both Vaults and Garden as well as Ebony Vaults, both private cemeteries, the least cost for a burial vault is N3,150,000.
At the Vaults and Gardens, a staff, who pleaded not to be named, said: “We have two sites, one is here in Ikoyi, while the other is at the Lekki-Ajah axis. Ikoyi Vaults starts from N3.2 million. The cost for two vaults that could contain two bodies, but one person at a time is N5.2 million. You put the first body, seal it, and when the other person dies, you open it and put the second person.
“At the Lekki-Ajah axis, there are only single vaults. The vaults go for N1.5 million. One thing that is synonymous with Vaults and Garden is that we don’t bury more than one person in a vault. Like in a public cemetery, four people could be buried in the same grave at the same time; of course the families will not know about this. But, Vaults and Garden will never bury two people in a grave. By that, I mean when it is not a double family vault. Our vaults are safe and security in guaranteed here. I will show you some of the vaults that go back to 2006 when the vault was opened. It is still very much intact. People come around to visit their loved ones.
“The reason for the disparity in prices between Lekki-Ajah and Ikoyi vaults is that we encourage people to go to Ajah. In Lekki-Ajah, some will say it is far, but we encourage people to go there. We acquired the one at Ajah. It was formerly Victoria Court Cemetery, but it is now owned by Vaults and Garden and we are the ones managing it now.
“A woman came here and told us that she was in her 60. She said that she knows that the Yaba Cemetery has been in existence since she was a kid and that it was still operating. I don’t know how they do it, maybe it is because of what they do. Once this place is full, we have the Victoria Court Cemetery. We have one in Port Harcourt, and also at the Redemption Camp.”
Outside the cost of the burial vaults, there are other charges that go with burials at the private cemeteries.
The Vaults and Garden’s staff explained further: “If there is a funeral, there are different types of tombstones- there are the marble, granite, red bricks and so on. When you make payment for the vault, you might as well make payment for the kind of tombstone you want. And inside the vault, you tell us whether you want to paint. The painting is N10, 500. If you want the inside of the vaults tiled, that will cost N63, 000.
“When you put the person, then we put the slap and seal it. Depending on you, if you want to make the payment once and for all for the tombstone, you make it. Once these payments are made, there are no subsequent charges. The people that are buried here about 10 years ago, I think then they bought for about N500, 000 to N600, 000, since that time there have been no other payment.”
Asked why the prices of vaults have shut up, he said: ”We all know that Ikoyi land is one of the most expensive in Lagos . The land I bought in Ikorodu five years ago, if I want to sell, it will be at a higher price. We also have to pay the cost of maintaining the place to look good.”
A member of a family with a loved one buried at the vaults, Muyiwa, said: “We decided to bury our mother at the private vault despite the cost, because we wanted to have peace of mind. In addition to this, my mother was somebody that loved good things. The vault was the kind of place she would have loved to be buried, and that was why we decided to do that for her. We spent about N5 million to cover every aspect of the burial and we were satisfied with the services they gave us.”
However, a professor of Sociology at the Obafemi Awolowo University Ile-Ife, Professor Mabayomije Aluko, believes that the craving for private vaults and other flamboyant activities has more to do with an innate desire by the super-rich to continue to enjoy what they had enjoyed while alive in the world beyond.
Professor Aluko said: “You see, some of these things that you people talk about is not really sociological per se, it is historical. You discover that even when you read history of medieval Europe, ancient Egypt, and how the Pharaohs were buried, they were usually buried in Pyramids. That was when the issue of preserving their dead bodies was very common. For several hundreds of years after the death of a Pharaoh, they still go there, the body is not decomposing. It is an orientation with the super rich and they believe that even in death, they should still be partaking in their wealth. That is the orientation. It is historical rather than sociological.
“Even in Yoruba land, when kings died in those days, they will bury some slaves with them, they will bury lots of resources with them. It is believed that they will have access to such resources in the journey beyond, and that the slaves they buried with them, will still be serving them in the other world.
“In contemporary times, it has become a status thing, that when I buried my father, Sunny Ade came to perform, the casket came from Britain. The number one undertaker was contracted and so on. It becomes a status thing. So, the sociological thing is that it is an elitist phenomenon. It is for the super rich, but you can trace that to Europe, ancient Egypt and so on, how people were buried in a flamboyant manner.
“But it has no religious origin. Even in the Bible, if you read the Bible well, burying people in a flamboyant manner is not biblical. In fact in the ancient Hebrew, when people died, they put ashes on their bodies and mourned; even they wanted people to come and mourn, to come and cry.
Such burials culturally in Yoruba land, are usually for the kings, it is not for everybody.”
