A Nigerian family who volunteered to dig graves in Kaduna

For more than 50 years, one family has dedicated itself to tending the largest cemetery in Nigeria’s northern city of Kaduna – and that’s thanks to other residents who don’t like the job of receiving the dead.

Until a few weeks ago, they were doing it without regular pay – digging graves, washing corpses and maintaining the vast cemetery, receiving only a small amount of money from mourners for their labor.

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

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

The two brothers and sisters are now lying under the soil in the grave, and their children have become the main guardians of the grave.

“The lesson they taught us to their children is that God loves his service and would reward us even if we don’t get any worldly benefits,” Ibrahim Abdullahi’s eldest son Magaji told the BBC about why they chose to continue. Unpaid undertakers.

The 58-year-old is now in charge of Tudun Wada – the pastoral work and the 18 members of 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 at 07:00 for 12-hour shifts, seven days a week.

They must always be on call because according to Muslim tradition, a funeral must be organized within a few hours of a person’s death.

Magaji tends to get the call directly from a relative or the imam on his cell phone – all the clerics in town have his number.

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

One of the three goes to take care of the corpse, which includes washing it and wrapping it in a shroud.

The body is measured and those details are sent back to the others so the grave is dug.

This can take around an hour – with two men taking it in turns to dig 6ft (1.8m) into the ground – sometimes longer when the grave is in rocky terrain.

They can dig up to a dozen graves a day – hard work in the Kaduna heat.

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

The cousins ​​have had some very troubling times – especially during the religious conflict when misunderstandings broke out between the town’s Christian and Muslim residents. The two communities live on opposite sides of the Kaduna River.

“We have had a couple of religious conflicts in Kaduna, but the one that sticks out the most for me is the one in the early 1990s. Many people were killed,” says Magaji.

“We collected the bodies and took them off the streets.”

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

“It was a stressful time for me personally and I wasn’t very active at the time, but this helped to boost my resolve to continue,” he said.

Usually, when the group digs a grave, the imam of a local mosque announces that the burial will take place during one of the five prayers.

Most of the faithful then go to the place where the body is prepared for prayer – then it is transported to the cemetery for burial, usually gathered by mourners.

Once near the grave, the covered body is lowered down – covered with wood and broken clay pots as a sign of respect. Then the grave is filled to make a slightly higher bed.

After the ritual is over and before the mourners leave, the cemetery guards ask for donations.

This is usually done by 72-year-old Inua Mohammed, a veteran worker at the cemetery, 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 raised their children with these virtues.”

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

The graves are reused after 40 years, that is, land is not a big issue – but maintenance is.

“Nowadays there are many things missing – we don’t have enough equipment to work or good security,” says Aliyu, who is the youngest of the cousins ​​and has served for 10 years.

He described how part of the wall had been demolished, allowing metal detectorists to steal grave markers.

Some graves have metal plaques with names and dates of birth and death – although many do not encourage desecration, as Islamic clerics do. Most of them are described only with stone and brick or sticks.

In any case, cousins ​​remember all the people buried in a cemetery and can guide people if they forget the location of a relative’s grave.

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

The new local council chairman who controls the position has decided to put them on the payroll.

Ryan Hussain told the BBC: “Given the sheer volume of work they do every day, they deserve it.

“Cemeteries are the final homes for all of us and those who do such hard work deserve to be paid, so my office will pay them as long as I am chairman.”

Magaji confirmed that the workers have started receiving monthly salaries for the first time.

• The five eldest, including himself, are earning 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 Mr Hussain said he hoped to increase the allowance “in due course”.

He says it is unfortunate that the cemetery has been neglected over the years by former local council officials.

There are plans to repair parts of the fence, install solar lights and increase security, the chairman added.

“Also, I am building a room in the cemetery where corpses are washed and prepared for burial. Before, all this had to be done indoors.”

It’s all a good investment for Abdullahi’s family — and Magaji hopes one of his 23 children will one day become a cemetery custodian.