The commercial city of Anambra may adopt a vault burial system as the people can no longer afford land to bury their dead.
In fact, a committee ‘on the innovative ways of burial in Onitsha’ has been inaugurated to handle the matter.
In his address at the 2026 Ofala festival at the weekend, Igwe Alfred Nnaemeka Achebe, Obi of Onitsha, lamented the difficulty posed by land scarcity in burial of corpses especially in the inland town area.
Part of his royal message entitled: ‘Proposed Vault Burial Alternative to Manage Limited Land Space’ Igwe Achebe argued that “the use of vaults for burial is an acceptable and universal method of interment, especially in environments with limited land space, such as Onitsha.
Lamenting the environmental hazard posed by continued burial in the area, he added: “In the circumstance, graves and soakaway pits are competing with boreholes with the risk of percolations from these two sources into water boreholes. Between April 2024 and May 2026, about 851 bodies have been buried in inland town alone. This practice can no longer be sustained.”
Obi Achebe said the committee on the ‘Innovative Way of Burials in Onitsha’ has interacted with various constituent groups in Onitsha on the use of vaults as a necessary alternative for burials in the community and that the groups accepted the need for the vault system in the context of the shrink land space in Onitsha and the continuous pollution of potable water.
However, Obi Achebe noted the lingering reluctance to accept the inevitable change. According to him some members of Agbalanze society think it is demeaning for an Ozo titled person to be buried in the same grave with a woman notwithstanding the precedent against the assertion, such as in Muoka family of Odoje Village.
Igwe Achebe wrote further: “A woman complained that there could be spiritual conflicts between the individual “chi” of persons in a vault”, but noted that, “These stereotypes should be viewed in the context of modern understanding of spirituality”.
Igwe Achebe, nevertheless promised that the enlightenment campaign will be sustained in the year ahead.
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