As the site of last Sunday plane crash in Iju-Ishaga area of Lagos State was fumigated yesterday, some residents of the area 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 a worrisome idea some of them have been battling with. As such, she said no one would want the victims buried at the scene of the accident, “for fear of their ghosts appearing to us”.
According to her, human beings are no goats and when they die prematurely, especially, violently, their ghosts tend to 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 of his colleagues could easily offer sacrifices to Ogun (the Yoruba god of 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.