Late Sir Taiwo Akinkunmi, the designer of the Nigerian flag, will finally be buried on Friday in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital.
This was made known to FIJ by Samuel Akinkunmi, one of the sons of the late national hero, in a telephone interview.
“Our father will be buried today after spending a little over a year at the morgue,” Samuel told FIJ in an interview on Friday morning.
“He died on August 29, 2023, and he will be buried today, September 6.
“As a matter of fact, we started burial activities on Wednesday with a series of events, and today, his body will first be taken to the Liberty Stadium in Ibadan here for the lying-in-state ceremony.
Late Sir Michael Taiwo Akinkunmi
READ MORE: Who Will Bury Taiwo Akinkunmi? 10 Months After Death, Body of National Flag Designer Still Lying in a Morgue
“After the ceremony, we will then proceed to committing his body to mother earth.
“Thank you for keeping an eye on the developments that surrounded our father’s burial when certain issues came up last year.”
On June 6, FIJ reported how representatives from the Oyo State government and the National Orientation Agency (NOA) paid the Akinkunmi family condolence visits after their patriarch died in September, 2023.
Prior to their visits, the family had held a meeting during which they resolved to lay the late national flag designer to rest between December 10 and 11, 2023.
READ MORE: After a Year Abandonment in the Morgue, Nigerian Flag Designer Akinkunmi Set to be Buried
With the state government and NOA’s promise of a national burial, however, the family was forced to postpone the event, hoping the two arms of government would make good their pledges on time.
That did not happen as the NOA failed to make good its promise. The failed promise also led to the corpse of the national hero spending a year at a morgue in Ibadan.
It took a public outcry and a handful of publications from media outfits before the Oyo State government could keep to its words of funding a befitting burial.
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