'OBITUARY WRITING', NEW REVENUE GENERATION SOURCE FOR GOVERNMENT

  One of the area which Nigeria is missing a lot of revenue generation is 'writing obituaries'.  A lot of Nigerians have a God given talent in writing exclusive obituary articles.  One suspects that the reason why some of our newspapers still manage to break even is because of the great amount of revenue they derive from obituaries.  It is not unusual for about one quarter the volume of an average daily to be constituted of obituaries and in memoria alone.
  One possible explanation for this, it has been argued, is that Nigerians values their dead greatly.  There is a popular saying that 'you do not say evil things against the dead'.  This is clearly the philosophy behind the honor which is been bestowed on the dead.
  From the evidence of these obituaries and in memeoriam, every dead Nigerian must have been something of a saint while alive. This would clearly explain why the death of most Nigerians are  attributed to the evil machinations of the wicked/enemies.  This may be funny, but only a few people in our country die naturally, and even when they do, the obituaries always give impressions that such death constitute the saddest loss to befall the family of the deceased.
  That is why writers of these obituaries and their allied advertisements are experts on 'mortuary stylistics'.  This 'mortuary stylistics,' the study in the art of eulogizing the dead and making their loss sound so heart breaking, is one of the commodities we can export to other countries.  We can really make big out of this, only if the government would place a value to writing obituaries.
  To me, this is a source of reducing the rate of unemployment in the society.  The talents of some writers are wasting, and this can be a medium of reviving such talents.