PA News - Dana Plane crash: Residents apprehensive about ghosts

Lagos – Some residents of Iju-Ishaga, a suburb of Lagos, where a Dana airline crashed into buildings on Sunday, have appealed to the authorities to bury the victims far from the area.
Their apprehension was based on their belief in the existence of ghosts,
Idayatu Ali, a 24-year-old unemployed school leaver, said living around the scene of the crash, was superstitious and would not want the victims buried at the scene of the accident, “for fear of ghosts”.
According to her, human beings are no goats and when they die prematurely, especially, violently, their ghosts will haunt the scene for a while.
“This is no superstition; I have witnessed where a young man died in an accident and his ghost continued to cry at the scene for days until a sacrifice was performed.
“Please, tell them not to bury the victims here or else some of us will have to abandon our houses,” she pleaded.
However, Jude Agwu, a commercial motorcyclist, said he and some colleagues could easily offer sacrifices to Ogun (the Yoruba god iron) in a bid to get rid of any ghost threat.
Mr Iyiola Akande, the South-West Zonal Coordinator, National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), said no decision had been taken on where to bury the victims.
He, however, believed that identifiable bodies should be released to their relations for burial, while badly burnt ones would be given mass burial, probably far from the scene.
“This is a densely populated area and erecting a memorial here may not be in the interest of the psyche of the residents.
“This has nothing to do with the myth about ghosts,” Akande said at the scene of the crash.
He also explained that a census of those living in the affected buildings—now demolished—would be taken soon to ascertain the number of those who died on the ground.
Akande said this would also form part of the statistics for the full rehabilitation of the survivors and compensations to the families of those who lost their lives in the mishap. (NAN)