Why Do We Celebrate the Dead More Than the Living? – Africa’s Cultural Insanity and Our Moral Collapse

By Sam Agogo

Only in Africa — and most especially in Nigeria — do we witness this bizarre, heartbreaking spectacle where the dead are worshipped, and the living are abandoned. It is a tragic irony that has become the hallmark of our society.

We live in a continent where a man can beg for help in the open, plead for support from friends, family, and community, yet be ignored without pity. But the moment that same man draws his last breath, the same people who turned deaf ears suddenly find the means to spend millions. They hire musicians, order gold-plated coffins, rent out event halls, slaughter cows, and flood social media with empty tributes — all to “honour” a man they could not help while he still breathed.

Tell me, what madness is this? What is befitting about a burial when the one you claim to honour can no longer see your tears or hear your songs? What dignity lies in pouring money into the ground, when you could not invest a fraction of that into saving a soul?

I once watched a Nigerian film that painfully mirrors our reality. A young man, desperate for help, reached out to everyone he knew. Nobody responded. When he died, they bought him a gold coffin, spent millions, and shut down a whole street for his burial. The irony was suffocating — the money that could have sustained his life became the price of his death.

Another film told the story of a man who faked his own death after being abandoned. The moment the news of his “death” spread, relatives and friends rushed in — suddenly generous. One offered to pay for food and drinks, another for the coffin, another for the hearse. Within days, they raised millions for a corpse that didn’t exist. When the man appeared alive, their shame was beyond words. Yet, this is the Africa we live in — a society that celebrates the dead and betrays the living.

Today, burials have become big business. There are customized coffins, branded undertakers, and dancing pallbearers performing to the tune of vanity. People now measure love by how extravagant a burial looks, not by how much compassion they showed in life. Some even borrow money to stage funerals that impress the crowd but insult the conscience.

And we call it “a befitting burial”? What foolishness! The truth is bitter but undeniable — we have lost our moral compass. We glorify the dead while neglecting the dying. We fund burials but starve the needy. We take pride in ceremonies and have forgotten humanity.

Sometimes, I admire the simplicity of Muslim burials. No theatrics. No waste. No hypocrisy. Just prayers, a white cloth, and humility before God. Death, in its truest form, should humble us — not turn into a festival of pride and showmanship.

Our society is bleeding. People are suffering, dying silently while surrounded by friends who only show up when it’s too late. The living are crying for help, but the world waits for their obituary before pretending to care.

May God deliver us from this madness — this moral decay that has turned compassion into performance and love into spectacle.

For Comments, Reflections, and Further Conversation:
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