Igwe Ikechukwu Oke, Chairman, Igboeze South Traditional Rulers Council in Enugu State has urged the state government to come up with a burial legislation that would outlaw keeping of corpses in the morgues.
He said the practice is encouraging elaborate burials, which according to him, is increasing the burden of coronavirus (COVID-19) in rural communities in the State.
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The traditional ruler made the observation when the Labour/Civil Society Situation Room on COVID-19 paid an advocacy visit to the council on Thursday.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the state government had, at the onset of the COVID-19, suspended public gatherings including burials, in order to contain the spread of the virus.
Following a reappraisal of the situation, the government recently lifted the ban on burials and limited such to immediate family members of the deceased.
However, the monarch said that the situation had not helped the matters as the COVID-19 safety protocols were hardly observed during burials.
The royal father said that keeping corpses in the mortuaries increased the chances of a large number of people attending such burials.
“In the interim, the government should place a ban on keeping corpses in the mortuaries.
“Anybody who dies should be buried immediately to curtail the number of people who troop to rural communities from urban centres,’’ he said.
The monarch said that the state government needed to act in order to contain mysterious deaths in the state.
Earlier, leader of the delegation, Mr Simon Onah, said that the group was in the area to sensitise the people of the council on the need to take the COVID-19 outbreak seriously.
Onah, who is the Vice Chairman, National Association of Nurses and Midwives, Enugu State chapter, remarked that it was sad that the pandemic was on the increase since the ease of the lockdown in the state.
He blamed the situation on the flouting of safety protocols recommended by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) and government regulations.
