The checks our correspondent made revealed that some residents had been living in horror as a result of their daily experiences with the cemeteries. Yet, a casual visitor to the area would be alarmed at the seeming equanimity with which the residents, including school children, view the huge number of burials that are done in their neighbourhood every day.
While mourners wore long faces as they walked slowly in groups of two, three or more, talking in low tones, school children walked past them playfully and without any sense of feeling or concern for the grim atmosphere surrounding them.
A resident, who pleaded not to be named, expressed surprise when asked whether the huge number of burial activities the residents witness daily, particularly the children, could have an adverse effect.
“How can the burials have any negative impact on the children?” he retorted. “You saw them playing as they walked past the mourners. This is something they see almost every day. So I don’t think it has any negative impact on them.”
Yet, there were residents of the street who said their experiences had not been palatable since they moved into the area. Many of them said they had developed a fear for ghosts, commonly referred to as phasmophobia or spectrophobia. Consequently, their thoughts, actions and movements are hinged on the happenings around the cemetery every day.
Alhaja Siti has lived in the area for more than six years. Her house, a bungalow, is bounded by three cemeteries, one behind the house, another one to the right and the third only a short distance away. The elderly woman believes that most residents of the community live in fear as a result of what they see on a daily basis.
She said: “It is impossible for one not to be fear-stricken living in this kind of environment. No matter how long you have lived here, you will at one time or the other get traumatised by the large number of cemeteries encircling the area. Only somebody who has lost every sense of human feeling would see what is happening here and still have his emotions intact.
“For me, the trauma is not about having graves all around the area. It is about the sight of bereaved families who come to bury their dead relations amidst tears, not once or twice every day. On some occasions, some people would just come and dump dead bodies in the cemetery without any attempt to put them inside a grave. Such sights leave one emotionally wrecked and that is what we see and live with everyday.”
At night, Siti said, the fears of the residents are heightened, especially those with a phobia for ghosts. “It is almost impossible to pass through certain areas of the community at night because you will develop goose pimples as unusual breeze blows you. Presently, we have five cemeteries in the area, but it would have been six if not that the plan to create another one was resisted by the people.
“This move, though rejected by the people, forced many tenants out of the community because they could not come to terms with how the dead could populate an area that is meant for the living.”
Another resident, who pleaded anonymity, said: “We want the state government to come and do something about it because it is not good for us. We have our children living with us and all they see here would have a way of affecting their psyche.”
Although it was afternoon and the sun was shining bright, Kaseem Najium could not veil his fears for ghosts in the area. Tall and dark, Najium’s phobia for ghosts is such that he does not patronise any trader he is not familiar with in the area, especially at night.
He said: “I don’t buy what I eat or use in the house from people that I don’t know very well. I don’t mind going outside the area to buy whatever I need. If I must buy anything here, it must be from somebody I know intimately.
“The reason is very simple: we are living in a community surrounded by cemeteries. Some of the corpses could transform to human beings and begin to sell one thing or the other. If you buy something, especially edible products, from such a person, would your life not be in crisis?”
Najium added: “I have read and heard accounts of dead people that transformed into human beings and go on to engage in business activities until a person who used to know her ran into her. I can bet that all the people that bought and ate what she sold would never be balanced again. I don’t want to be a victim of such and as a result would do everything possible not to fall into that trap.”
For years, Ganiu Rasheed has operated as an okada (commercial motorcycle) rider in the Morkaz area of Agege. But while he described himself as bold and willing to take risks, he said there was no amount of money that would tempt him to take a passenger to Jafojo area once it is past 7 pm.
He said: “I won’t take anybody to Jafojo area after 7 pm, no matter the amount you offer me. It is risky and I would not put my life on the line because of money. Everything in life is not about money. When you carry a passenger to that area late in the night, you are likely to be carrying a ghost, and if it happens that the passenger is a ghost, the trip may have unpalatable consequences.
“We have heard numerous stories like that, but they are not what one can be narrating publicly. If the passenger is not a ghost and you are to carry him or her across the numerous cemeteries in the area at night, you may run into spirits, and if you are not lucky enough, you may not return the way you went there.
“These and several others are the reasons why many of us would not dare go near the community late in the evening. I have personally been warned against it and would not do otherwise. It is only the stubborn fly that goes to the grave with the corpse.”
Another resident, who simply identified himself as Adewumi, said, as a bachelor, he finds it difficult wooing ladies in the area because for fear that they might be ghosts parading themselves as human beings. For him and many of his friends, an abiding code of conduct is to stay off strange girls in the neighbourhood, no matter how beautiful they are.
“I can’t date any lady in this area, no matter how beautiful, because it is an unusual environment. The reason is borne out of the fear of taking a ghost home. We have read and heard of men who wooed and took some women home and later found that they were ghosts. It may sound like a fairy tale, but I have never treated it with kid gloves. Even if I know the lady’s parents or her house, I would not give in to wooing her.
“I have fears about the cemeteries and as a result, I don’t stay outside the community till late in the night. If for any reason I am outside the community till late in the night, I would pass the night in any of my friends’ house. When you come into the community late at night, your whole being may suffer some psychological crisis.”
Akpan James did not bargain for what befell him when he went out in search of an apartment. After a fruitless search, the Akwa-Ibom State-born man was overjoyed when the agent told him he had found a good place for him.
With the fear that he might lose out once again, he quickly paid for the apartment without even bothering to ask about the location. But no sooner was he taken to the house than it dawned on him that his new apartment is surrounded by cemeteries.
But in sspite of his fears, he has lived in the area for 10 years because he has not been able to raise enough money to rent another apartment.
He said: “I have been living here for the past 10 years, but I never wanted to stay here in the beginning. It happened that when I was searching for accommodation, the estate agent did not give me any inkling that the building is tucked in the middle of burial grounds. He brought me here through another street and made it appear as if that was the only street leading to the area.
“It was after I had paid and was planning to move in that I noticed the building is surrounded by cemeteries. Immediately I saw this, I went after the agent to ask for a refund because I felt it would not be psychologically healthy for me and my family to be seeing graves and people coming to bury their deceased friends and relations every time. But all my efforts to have them refund my money failed.
“All they told me was that I should just manage and live in the house till my rent expired. I heeded their advice because it would not be possible to get the money I paid refunded in full. If they wanted to refund the money, I wouldn’t have got half of what I paid because all the middlemen involved in the business had taken their shares and gone their various ways.
“I thought I would leave once the rent expired, but I couldn’t because of financial challenges. I have developed thick skin to the cemeteries. I have no fear whatsoever about them. In fact, back in my hometown, I sleep on my late father’s grave because he was buried in my room and I have my bed on his grave, and since I have been sleeping there, I have not had any reasons to be petrified.”
James’ neighbour, Goodness Samuel, is eager to move out of the area. Her fears, which are often heightened whenever she is pregnant, she said, make her to have nightmares.
She said: “I can’t wait to move out of this environment. It is horrifying for one to be seeing graves around every minute of the day.
“My fears about the cemeteries were heightened when I was pregnant. I was scared stiff because I didn’t want to dream about it at night. I always made sure I wiped the thought away from my mind before going to bed so that it would not end up forming what I would dream about at night. One of the steps I took to achieve this was to always take a longer route that has no cemeteries around it. That was what I did all through the time I was pregnant, although it was very strenuous.
“We are not the only people that are terrified by the cemeteries. Commercial motorcyclists also don’t come here late in the evening. When you ask them to take you to this street, they would refuse, saying that they don’t go to cemeteries. They often refer to us as cemetery tenants and that, to me, is demeaning.
“I am prepared to move out right now if I have the wherewithal. If my landlord asks me not to pay rent anymore, I will leave if I have the means. Even if he dashes me the whole building, I will not stay. I will only sell it to buy another house elsewhere.
“I was scared when my family newly moved into this area because I found it strange and unhealthy to live in the middle of cemeteries.”
But Mohammed Awale, a resident of the community, is not in any way perturbed by the presence of the cemeteries. For him, cemeteries are the last home for all mortals and therefore should not be feared by humans.
He said: “I have no reason to be afraid of the cemeteries because that is the final home of every one of us. The people in those graves were human beings like us before they transited to the world beyond.
“I have never encountered any ghosts since I started living here eight years ago. I am a believer and I believe that we all came from Allah and unto Him we shall all return. Guided by this belief, I have no reason to be scared about the cemeteries or hounded by stories being told about ghosts. I don’t believe in all that.”
Mohammed’s line of thought was shared by Hauwa Sule, a trader. As a business woman, she said she sells to everybody without bothering if they could be ghost.
She said: “I don’t have any reason to be scared of the cemeteries or the corpses buried there. Why do I have to be scared in the first place? I am here today, tomorrow I may be there with them, and if I am there, I would not have any reasons to be haunting the living. If you look at it from this point of view, you will not have any reason to be worried about the burial grounds and their contents.
“As a business woman, I also don’t have any reasons to suspect that any customer may be a ghost, as long as he or she is not patronising me from the grave or casket. Since I have been selling goods to people and collecting money from them, none of the notes has told me that it is a ghost’s money.”
Mohammed Sanni also says he is not disturbed by the happenings in his neighbourhood even though his house is surrounded by cemeteries. This, he said, is based on his religious beliefs.
“I have no fear of any ghost at all. I have lived here for more than five years now, and I can tell you that I have never had a single encounter with any ghost. Moreover, I am a Muslim, and with that, there is no particular reason for me to say that I fear this or that about the cemeteries,” he said.
Sanni’s friend and popular comedian, Funky Mallam, laughed away the talk of ghosts harassing the residents. “How can somebody who is dead drive fears into me?” he asked. “That sure is not possible. The cemeteries are home for the dead and we are living. So, we have nothing in common at all.”
Speaking on the impact that regular burial activities in the area could have on a growing child, a psychologist, Lateefat Odunuga, said it might not be pleasing for a growing child to live around cemeteries.
She said: “From a psychological standpoint, the emotional and behavioural state of a child living around the cemetery can be signified as miserable with lots of negative symptoms.
“Some researchers have identified associated psychosocial symptoms such as somatic distress, preoccupation with the image of the dead, sadness, anger, intensified feelings of loneliness, fear, depression, loss of established patterns of conduct. This makes some of these children try hard to read books as the environment in which they reside is extremely quiet.
“Some developing children are faced with myriads of challenges, such as not having friends around to visit them and inability to mix with other children in the area thus bringing about peer isolation. The social expectations of a child include making friends and learning societal cultural values. This might not be so in the case of children who live around cemeteries.
“Inferiority complex can be developed amongst these children due to the kind of environment they find themselves. Also, some of these children might not be happy with their parents for bringing them to live in such environment.
“Children in this category might engage in some disorders that can be threatening due to the frustrations they encounter in living in such environment.”
Odunuga narrated the experience of a young school boy to drive home her point. The boy named Hassan, she said, became tired with going to school, because he alongside his brother had to pass through a cemetery.
“Hassan and his brother routinely had to cross a cemetery to get to school. They had no choice because it was the only route that leads to their school. The uncomfortable silence and the aura of death oozing out of the environment gave them goose bumps.
“Seeing people gathered with such sad faces and tears, the sight of caskets and digging of graves make them sad and perturbed.
“They see people pouring sand into the grave with tears in their eyes and sadness in their faces. Although they may not know why, they know it is not for a good reason. The problem of death concerned him very early in life as this was never a pleasant experience for him.”
