Rail project: Lagos residents exhume relatives’ corpses in affected houses

Residents of Agege area of Lagos State have begun to dig out the remains of their relatives buried inside some of the buildings marked for demolition to provide space for railway station to be constructed in the area.

It was gathered that some of the corpses, which have been buried inside the affected houses over 30 years ago, are being exhumed by their families to rebury them elsewhere.

It was also learnt that the company handling the project paid the owners of the demolished buildings.

Some of the affected landlords confirmed that the company calculated the number of tombs in each of the buildings pulled down and paid for their exhumations and reburial.

One of the residents, Yusuf Bakare said, “We exhumed the remains of our three relatives from where they were buried inside the house.

“The company told us that they had included the money needed to dig out the dead from their graves and rebury them elsewhere. We took them to the cemetery at Jafojo where we reburied them.

“Officials of the company counted the tombs in each of the houses they demolished and paid us the money to dig them up and rebury them. I took the remains of my father to Jafojo. I went with some Islamic clerics and I also know some of the verses required to be recited before burying the dead. We did that and that was it.”

Taju, another resident of the area, said that two corpses of his relatives buried in 1999 and 2005, were exhumed from the house he lives. He also confirmed that the company foots the bill exhume and rebury the bodies.

Explaining the exhumation and reburial process, Taju said, “We dug the remains up at night. What we dug up were bones, shrouds and foams lining coffins. Some of the relatives of the dead brought new shrouds and the remains of their loved ones were tied in the shrouds before we put them in new coffins. They carried the new coffins and the contents to cemeteries while some took theirs to where they intend to rebury them.’’