Prof Chinua Achebe’s family accuses his wife and children of 'selling' his corpse!

It is three days today before the remains of foremost novelist, Chinua Achebe, arrives Nigeria for a five-day burial rite that would culminate in his interment on Thursday, May 23, at his family compound in Ogidi, Anambra State.

But as organizers put finishing touches to the burial arrangement, a serious controversy has blown open over the decision of the late writer’s family to hand over the programme to the Nigerian federal government as well as those of Anambra and other states in the South-east geopolitical zone.


Mr. Achebe’s family members, contemporaries, associates, friends and fans are accusing the late writer’s wife, Christy and her children, of selling Mr. Achebe’s corpse to the government for pecuniary gains.

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?”

Checks revealed that the federal and Anambra state government are handling almost all aspects of the burial. 

The federal government has constituted a Chinua Achebe Transition Committee, led by Professor T. Uzodinma Nwala, to handle logistics for the burial. The Minister of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has also been detailed to arrange accommodation, transportation and security for all guests expected at the burial. In fact, a document seen by one of our sources listed Mr. Achebe’s wife and children among guests being expected at the burial, suggesting that they were being invited to their own patriarch’s interment.

A programme drawn up by the Professor Nwala’s committee showed that Mr. Achebe’s remains would, on May 21, be received at the airport in Abuja by Nigerian politicians and political office holders, some of whom the writer considered corrupt and inept while alive. The novelist will also be treated to a reception at the National Assembly, populated mainly by elements Mr. Achebe believed were holding Nigeria down.