The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) have faulted the practice of keeping the dead for too long before they are buried. The separatist group, therefore, recommended that the burial of the dead should be organised within three days of the person’s death.

IPOB, in a press statement, yesterday, by its Spokesman, Emma Powerful, especially urged Southeasterners to develop the culture of burying their dead early enough, at the latest within three days after the person’s death as it was in the past.

Powerful claimed that IPOB went deeply spiritual and found that keeping dead ones for too long is contributing to major problems of Ndigbo in the present times.

He said: “As it was in the past, bereaved families should be allowed to bury their dead while the burial ceremony is fixed at a later date, including whatever levies needed to be collected.

“Our ancestors were burying their dead within three days and it was this culture, which our ancestors maintained from the beginning, that helped them spiritually.

“The present habit of keeping the dead more than three days, even months and years in the mortuary, have had dire effects on our land and contributed to the spiritual weakness of Igbo Nation and of the entire Biafra land, including moral decadence and all manner of evil that has taken root in our land.

“Now that IPOB has come to realise that this alien practice is having a negative impact on our people and our land, it has, therefore, become necessary to urge our people to revert to the old practice that had a positive effect on our wellbeing, spiritually and otherwise.”

He disclosed that the reasons given by Igbo, which caused unnecessary delay in burying their dead, are neither cogent nor reasonable.