When a wealthy Ghanaian passes away abroad, the family head back home often swears by fire and water that the body must be flown to Ghana for burial. Lavish plans are drawn, airline tickets purchased, committees formed, and grand announcements made, all in the name of “respecting tradition.”
But when the deceased dies poor, there is no rush, no chorus of mourning, no chartered flights. The body is quietly laid to rest in a foreign land, sometimes without even a familiar face present. It is a painful mirror reflecting the hypocrisy and class-based grief that has quietly taken root within our cultural values.
Across the Ghanaian diaspora, what should be a sacred moment of mourning has, in many cases, turned into a battlefield for property, power, and performance. Instead of unity, funerals have become arenas where people compete to display wealth, influence, and status while those who suffer most, the widow and children, are often forgotten.
A lesson from Canada
Living in Canada offers a striking contrast. When someone dies, the emphasis is simple: closure and dignity. No one fights over who controls the funeral. No one measures love by how many cows are slaughtered, how many buses are hired, or how many dignitaries attend. The community gathers, shares memories, supports the family, and helps the bereaved rebuild their lives.
There is no scramble for properties in the hours following the last breath.
No family elder shows up with documents.
No nephew claims the car.
No cousin demands the house.
No one tries to rewrite the deceased’s legacy for personal gain.
In Canada, inheritance is documented, wills are respected, and the law protects the vulnerable. People understand that grief is heavy enough; adding conflict is cruel. The funeral is not a stage for wealth, but a moment for reflection.
Meanwhile, Back Home in Ghana
In Ghana, death too often triggers chaos.
Not because we lack love but because we have allowed cultural pride to be replaced by cultural performance.
Family heads, who once served as custodians of peace, have become power brokers.
Funeral committees have turned into financial negotiating boards.
And the legacy of the deceased is often reduced to what remains to be shared.
Who controls the funeral arrangements?
Who handles the donations?
Who inherits the land, the car, the money?
These questions overshadow the very essence of mourning: love, remembrance, and support.
Meanwhile, the real victims, the widow, the children, the dependents,s are pushed aside, their tears drowned out by those who seek to benefit from tragedy.
The Death of a Beloved Cultural Icon
Recently, the passing of a beloved Ghanaian cultural figure, re someone whose music and influence shaped the soul of the nation, brought this issue to the surface once again. Instead of unity, celebration of life, and protection of the legacy, debates erupted over property, control, and next-of-kin authority.
What should have been a national moment of honour turned into speculation, division, and positioning. A life that touched millions was reduced to paperwork and inheritance arguments. How did we become a people who turn loss into opportunity?
We Must Confront This Moral Decline. Death should remind us of three things:
Humility
Compassion
Continuity of love
Not competition.
Funerals should not bankrupt families.
They should not destroy relationships.
They should not become theatres of excess.
We must return to the values we claim to hold:
Respect for the dead.
Protection for the living.
Honour for the legacy that remains.
The true measure of a funeral is not how loud the headlines are,
not how many celebrities attended,
not how many cows were sacrificed,
But how well the dignity of the deceased and the well-being of the survivors are preserved.
A Call for Change
Let us begin to:
1 . Write wills so that the living are not thrown into battle.
2. Honour grief privately, not as a public show of wealth.
3 . Support widows and children instead of pushing them aside.
4. Celebrate lives, not possessions.
The real legacy of the dead is not in their houses, cars, or money but in the lives they touched and the memories they leave behind.
Let us, as a people, stand up and say:
We choose dignity over display.
We choose compassion over competition.
We choose peace over property wars.
Because in the end, it is not the size of the funeral that matters but the size of the love we carry forward.
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DISCLAIMER: The Views, Comments, Opinions, Contributions and Statements made by Readers and Contributors on this platform do not necessarily represent the views or policy of Multimedia Group Limited.
Source: www.myjoyonline.com