A Nigerian family volunteering to dig graves in Kaduna

For more than 50 years, a family has dedicated itself to looking after the largest cemetery in the northern Nigerian city of Kaduna – thanks to other residents who don’t like the job of dealing with the dead.

Until a few weeks ago, they worked without formal pay: digging graves, cleaning corpses and tending the vast cemetery, receiving only small donations from mourners for their work.

The vast Tudun Wada cemetery was laid out by the authorities for the city’s Muslim population a century ago.

The Abdullahi family joined in the 1970s when two brothers – Ibrahim and Adamu – started working there.

The two siblings are now buried underground, and their sons have become the chief custodians of the cemetery.

“Their teachings to us, their children, was that God loves service and would reward us for it even if we don’t make worldly gains,” Ibrahim Abdullahi’s eldest son Magaji told the BBC. unpaid undertaker

The 58-year-old is now in charge of Tudun Wada – pastoral operations and 18 staff or until recently – volunteers.

He and his two younger cousins ​​- Abdullahi, 50, and Aliyu, 40, (sons of Adamu Abdullahi) – are three full-time workers, all reporting by 7am for a 12-hour shift, seven days a week.

They must always be there, because according to Muslim rites, a burial must be organized within a few hours of someone’s death.

Magaji usually receives the call on his cell phone, directly from a relative or an imam—every cleric in the city has his number.

“A lot of people have our numbers and as soon as someone dies, we get a call and get to work right away,” he says.

One of the trio goes to care for the corpse, which may include cleaning it and wrapping it in a shroud.

The body is measured and those details are texted to others so they can dig a grave.

This can take about an hour – two people taking turns to penetrate 6 feet (1.8 m) of soil – sometimes longer when the cemetery is in a rocky area.

They can dig a dozen graves a day, hard work in the hot Kaduna.

“Today alone we dug eight graves and it’s not even noon, some days are like that,” says Abdullahi, who started working at the cemetery when he was 20 years old.

The cousins ​​have lived through very stressful times, especially when tensions flare up in religious violence between the city’s Christian and Muslim residents. The two communities tend to live on different sides of the Kaduna River.

“We have had a couple of religious clashes in Kaduna but the one that sticks out to me the most was in the early 1990s. A lot of people were killed,” says Magaji.

“We went around collecting the bodies and taking them out of the street.”

The Muslims were taken to Tudun Wada in the north of the city and the Christians to the cemeteries in the southern suburbs.

“Personally it was a very worrying time and I didn’t stay at work for long, but that helped increase my will to continue,” he says.

Usually, while the team digs a grave, the imam at the local mosque announces that a funeral will be held during one of the five daily prayers.

Afterwards, many worshipers go to the place where the corpse has been prepared for prayers; they are then taken to the cemetery for burial, often full of mourners.

Once at the grave, the shrouded body is lowered – it is covered with sticks and broken clay pots as a mark of respect. The grave is then filled to form a slightly raised bed.

After the rites are over and before the mourners leave, cemetery managers ask for donations.

This is often done by 72-year-old Inuwa Mohammed, the cemetery’s oldest worker, who explains the importance of the Abdullahi family to the community.

He worked with the cousins’ fathers: “They were amazing people, who loved what they did and instilled this altruistic behavior in their children.”

The little money raised will sometimes buy lunch for the crew, but never enough for anything else. To survive, the family also has a small farm where they grow food.

Graves are recycled after 40 years, so the soil is not a big problem, but maintenance is.

“There is a lot missing at the moment: we don’t have enough equipment to work, not even good security,” says Aliyu, the youngest of the cousins ​​and who has worked there for 10 years.

He explains how part of the wall has collapsed, allowing scavengers to steal the grave markers.

Some graves have metal plaques inscribed with the name and date of birth and death; although many do not encourage pretense that Islamic religions do not. Most of them are drawn with stones and bricks or a stick.

However, cousins ​​remember the location of everyone buried in the cemetery and can direct people if they have forgotten the location of a relative’s grave.

Following a recent BBC visit to the cemetery, they have seen a dramatic change in fortunes.

The new president of the City Council, who oversees the site, has decided to join the payroll.

“They deserve it because of the hard work they do every day,” Rayyan Hussain told the BBC.

“Graves are the last homes for everyone and people who work hard deserve to be paid for, so my office would pay for it while I’m president.”

Magaji confirmed that the workers have started receiving their monthly salary for the first time:

• the five oldest, including himself, are getting 43,000 naira ($28; £22.50)
• the others, including Abdullahi and Aliyu, are receiving 20,000 naira ($13; £10.50).

This is below the minimum wage of $45 a month, but Hussain says he expects it to increase “over time”.

He says that it is unfortunate that the previous mayors have left the cemetery for years.

The president added that he plans to repair parts of the fence, install solar lights and add security.

“I am also building a room in the cemetery so that the bodies can be washed and prepared for burial, until now all this had to be done from the houses.”

It’s a welcome investment for the Abdullahi family, and Magaji hopes to ensure that one of his 23 children will one day become a cemetery custodian.