story culled from PREMIUM TIMES has it that in the last one week, it has received several telephone calls from some of Mr. Achebe’s family members, contemporaries, associates, friends and fans accusing the late writer’s wife, Christy and her children, of surrendering Mr. Achebe’s corpse to the government for pecuniary gains.
The family wouldn’t comment on the allegations.
While alive, Mr. Achebe, who died on March 22 at 82, was a consistent and vociferous critic of the Nigerian federal and state governments who he repeatedly accused of monumental corruption, ineptitude and misgovernment. In protest against the way Nigeria is run, the revered novelist, in 2004 and 2011, rejected national honours awarded him by the federal government.
But the federal and state governments that Mr. Achebe criticized and kept at bay while alive have now been handed leading roles in the burial of the globally acclaimed novelist, a development that has irked not a few family members, contemporaries, fans and associates.
“Prof was a simple man who deliberately rejected affiliation with the Nigerian government,” lamented an Achebe family member who pleaded not to be named for fear of being ostracized by the late writer’s family. “It is now shocking and nauseating that his wife and children have now sold his corpse to the same destructive forces he opposed till death.”
She added, “We are trying to understand why they are trying to destroy his legacy when the man actually left more than enough wealth to be given a befitting burial without any government getting involved. Why don’t they want to spend the man’s money to give him a befitting burial?”
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