For more than 50 years, one family has dedicated themselves to tending the largest cemetery in the northern Nigerian city of Kaduna – much to the appreciation of other residents who dislike working with the dead.
Until a few weeks ago, they did this without formal pay – digging graves, washing corpses and tending the vast cemetery, receiving only small donations from mourners for their work.
The large Tudun Wada cemetery was set aside by the authorities for the city’s Muslim residents a century ago.
Abdullahi’s family started in the 1970s when two brothers – Ibrahim and Adamu – started working.
Now the two siblings lie underground in the cemetery, and their sons have become the main caretakers of the cemetery.
“Their teachings to us, their children, was that God loves service and will reward us for it, even if we don’t get any worldly income,” Ibrahim’s eldest son Abdullahi Magaji told the BBC when asked why they decided to continue working as unpaid gravediggers.
The 58-year-old now manages Tudun Wada’s pastoral operations and 18 staff or, until recently, volunteers.
He and his two younger cousins - 50-year-old Abdullahi and 40-year-old Aliyu (sons of Adamu Abdullahi) – are three full-time workers, all arriving before 07:00 for a 12-hour shift seven days a week.
They must always be in touch because, according to Muslim rites, a funeral must be arranged within hours of death.
