‘Our lives as gravediggers’

Gravedigging is one of the most essential job yet most dreaded in the society, despite its importance to both the dead and the living. Daily Trust Saturday visited one of the oldest graveyards in Gombe metropolis, established about 40 years ago and interacted with some gravediggers.

At 2pm, Malam Muhammadu Tasha, 57, sat under a temporary canopy, chatting with his colleagues inside the Gombe Central Graveyard, located some three kilometres from the metropolis.

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Malam Tasha and his colleagues were resting, having dug 15 graves and participated in burying the deceased, just within seven hours of reporting for work at the graveyard.

The walled cemetery, which occupies over 50 hectares of land, located northeast of Gombe metropolis, has been serving as the final ‘resting place’ for the people of Gombe and environs since the early 2008, after the old burial ground was filled to capacity.

Tasha is the head of watchmen at the cemetery, employed by the Gombe Local Government Area some 20 years ago to prevent passersby and strayed animals from trespassing into the graveyard.

Apart from serving as watchmen, Malam Tasha, alongside his 11 other colleagues, also work as gravediggers, in addition to helping people in the herculean task of burying their dead relatives.

The resident of Kagarawal quarters of Gombe metropolis said he previously fed his two wives and eight children, as well as took care of other basic needs, by fetching firewood and grass, but it was not enough.

Sometime in the year 2000, four of the men were employed by the then chairman of Gombe Local Government, Ibrahim Sagir Abubakar and posted to the cemetery as watchmen.

Tasha accepted the offer to work at the graveyard, which is one of the dreaded jobs in the society, because he did not have any certificate or skill; hence he had limited options.

“I accepted the job reluctantly because I did not have other options, and selling grass and firewood was not putting enough food on my table. When I started this job I was afraid and always at the main gate,” he told Daily Trust Saturday.

He, however, said that over the years he got used to the environment and the job, adding, “I can now work till 8pm. In fact, I sometimes take a nap between graves without feeling anything.”

When he started, his job was to chase away animals, but he later learnt how to dig graves and bury the dead, which is the most difficult aspect of working at the cemetery.

“It is difficult because it is both emotional and scary. It is emotional because you are putting fellow human beings into graves, a fate that will befall you one day. It is also scary because naturally, people are afraid of dead bodies; but having spent over 20 years working here, I don’t feel anything while performing such tasks.”

According to him, on daily basis, about 25 people are buried at the cemetery, which is different from the number buried at the two cemeteries in other parts of the metropolis. “The central graveyard along Bajoga road receives the most number of corpses,” he added.

Grossly underpaid

The huge responsibility on Tasha’s shoulder notwithstanding, his take-home pay is a little above N20,000 monthly, which is not enough to cater for his family, considering the high cost of commodities in the country.

Daily Trust Saturday learnt that Tasha and his colleagues depend largely of alms by people who bring their relatives for burial.

“Mostly, people we help to dig graves give us some token as sadaka. At the end of the day we share the money equally. We use the money for transportation and to buy food while at work,” he said.

Despite the vast land at the cemetery, only 12 people are working there; and only five of them are permanent members of staff. Tasha said they needed additional 10 people to work effectively.

Recently, the state government added more hectares of land to the cemetery, which is an additional burden on the 12 members of staff.

Malam Muhammadu Dikko, 56, is another watchman, who also doubles as a gravedigger at the cemetery. He has been working there for 20 years.

He told Daily Trust Saturday that it was destiny that brought him to the graveyard. “I just heard that new members of staff were being recruited and I showed interest. I was lucky to be picked,” he said.

Before he was engaged at the cemetery, he worked as a labourer in a block-making factory, a job he said was rigorous. So, when he got the chance to work for the government and receive salaries, he jumped at the opportunity.

Dikko has a wife and 12 children who depend on his meager monthly salary of N20,000.

“Members of my family are supportive of my job because it brings food and helps me to take care of them. I was also lucky to build a personal house where we are now living.

“However, the major challenge is that sometimes, the salary, even though not adequate, is not forthcoming. It is small and doesn’t come on time; and we heavily depend on it.

“Our only comfort is that members of the community respect us and some good Samaritans give us alms when they come to bury their loved ones or on private visits to pray,” he said.

Malam Usman Abubakar, 50, he is a volunteer and has been working for the past three years without salary.

According to him, he opted to work at the graveyard as a means of getting rewards.

“I was a subsistence farmer, but what I cultivated could not even feed my family, not to talk of selling some. I also sold grasses,” he said.

According to Abubakar, as a volunteer he is not finding the job easy. “I rely on what people give us as alms when we dig graves for them or offer assistance to bury the corpses they bring to the graveyard. But to be candid, I am just struggling to feed my family, and at the age of 50, I cannot do hard labour,” he said.

Graveyard unkempt  

Daily Trust Saturday observed that most of the graves are usually covered by grasses during the rainy season. And grasses are usually cleared to dig a new grave whenever a fresh corpse is brought to the cemetery.

It was learnt that there are volunteers who usually clear the grasses and do other maintenance work, especially during the rainy season, but for some time now, they have not come; hence grasses have grown over the graves.

It was also gathered that corpses are buried at the cemetery from early morning till late in the evening; and there’s no pre-condition before people bury their relatives.

“Most of the corpses are brought in very late in the evening, so they have to provide proofs, mostly from hospitals, that there is nothing fishy about them,” Tasha further said.

He added that another challenge they faced was how to go back home after closing from work, mostly by 7pm. “Most of the times we have to trek for about two kilometres before we would get a motorcycle to take us home. There is no official means of transportation and we cannot afford to buy motorcycles from our meagre salaries,” he said.