A New Way to Make Money in Nigera

Do you remember the last time you mourned for the dead or for anything or anyone that weighs you down? It maybe that you lost a loved one or that your lover called it quit.

You definitely will know how it hurts and how uncontrollably you sobbed and wanted the tears to keep flowing, but you surely did not know that that simply natural act of mourning could earn you a living.

How?
Read this story from Bayelsa state in the Nigeria Niger Delta…

In a small village in south-eastern Bayelsa state a man who was very infamous died.

In his lifetime, he wasn’t loved by his village people, he did a lot of things that made then hate him; selling people’s lands, arresting people indiscriminately… those things that could and did earned him a chapter in the black book of his villagers.

Of course he could afford to alienate himself, he had money, his sons were into politics and he had proximity to the authorities.

His sons were showing signs of taking from the old man and so, when he died, the villagers saw it as pay back time.

In Nigeria (and Africa generally) you must be a good man if a lot of people show up for your funeral, and this can be used for political reasons.

The villagers didn’t want to mourn the dead man to pay him back and to dent the political image of his sons in the presence of their colleagues in politics.

But the boys had a solution;
They went to the streets of the state capital, Yenagoa, and hired mourners for their dad!

The mourners came in buses before the political figures arrived and stationed themselves along the village road, as the convoy of dignitaries came into the village with the corpse, the mourning and wailing could be heard kilometers away.

It was as if they just lost a major battle.

The hired mourners mourned and wailed falling to the muddy earth alongside the ambulance and some even wanted to jump into the grave and be buried with him.

“How could such a person die” they were shouting, “Why don’t I die in his stead” some were saying.

The villagers could not believe it; all their plans failed. To them the man may not have been mourned, but to the politicians, he was a good man in his community, and that’s what mattered to the dead man’s sons - and the dead man.

So, the next time you cry, save some tears, it might yield money for you.