Lagos to Allow Residents Burn Dead Bodies

Lagos State yesterday gave legal teeth to a new law allowing residents of the state to cremate deceased relatives and friends with reasons.

Cremation which may serve as a funeral or post-funeral rite is an alternative to the interment of an intact dead body in a coffin or casket and is the use of high-temperature burning, vaporization, and oxidation to reduce dead animal or human bodies, to basic chemical compounds.

With the new law, unclaimed corpses may be subjected to cremation to decongest the state’s mortuaries.

Babatunde Fashola, governor of the state accented to the Cremation Bill presented to him by the state lawmakers after months of heated public debate.

Under the new law, failure to show up to collect the ashes of the burnt corpses after a 14-day notice would lead to their disposal by the state government subject to the consent and approval of the Commissioner for Health.

Speaking after signing the bill into law, Fashola stressed the cremation law was voluntary and commended members of the state House of Assembly for responding to global yearnings.

He explained that the enactment of the cremation law showed how the concept of globalisation had taken its roots in the state.

Mr. Ade Ipaye, attorney- general and commissioner for Justice, Lagos state said that the law was voluntary.

Ipaye said that only those who chose to burn their relatives could do so.

“It is voluntary in the sense that it allows for voluntary cremation, whereby a person may signify interest to be cremated when he dies or a deceased’s family members who must attain the age of 18 years can decide to have the corpse cremated.

“The law now makes it legal for the state government to cremate unclaimed corpses in its mortuaries after a period of time.” The commissioner stressed that if the owners of the corpse also failed to show up to collect the ashes after a14-day notice it would be disposed by the state government subject to the consent and approval of the Commissioner for Health.

Ipaye added that Section 2 of the law stipulated that no cremation could take place except in a crematorium established by the Ministry of Health or by any other body after approval by the Commissioner for Health.

The attorney-general listed the guidelines to get permission to cremate and those who could apply for it is stipulated in Section 6 of the law. He also affirmed that the cremator in charge might bury the ashes in a burial ground if “within one year after the cremation, the applicant does not give reasonable written instructions for the disposal of the ashes.”

Ipaye added that those who could seek permission to cremate include a child or children of the deceased; a close relative of the deceased; an undertaker and an agent/legal representative. The commissioner said that Section 10 of the law states that the cremator in charge of a crematorium must not dispose of the ashes after a cremation except in accordance with any reasonable written instructions of the applicant.