Former Upper East Regional Minister, Tangoba Abayage, has condemned businessman Norbert Atodio for burying his late father in a Toyota Corolla, dismissing the act as morally unjust.
The former minister expressed disbelief that someone of Atodio's stature would overlook the opportunity to address community challenges and instead use a car as a casket.
In a Facebook post on May 28, 2023, she questioned Atodio's lack of major social interventions within his immediate community of Doba and Navrongo at large, emphasizing that this choice demonstrated a lack of moral conscience.
“People say he’s rich; I don’t know because I’ve never directly encountered him. For someone of his caliber, I’m yet to hear of any major social interventions he’s conducted for his immediate community, Doba, or Navrongo at large; I may be corrected.
“For such a man to drive a whole car with a dead body inside underground smacks of a person who’s morally unjust to the society he sits in to make his money. I know his station, his community, and have been shown some members of his immediate family and I’m wondering how any man with a right moral conscience will overlook all these that immediately surround him to do what he’s just done,” she said.
She argued that given his financial status, it was disheartening to witness such a display of moral bankruptcy where a valuable resource like a car was used as a burial container.
The former Regional Minister suggested that the money could have been utilized to establish a herbal training center to honor his father's legacy as a powerful herbalist. Alternatively, she argued that the funds could have been directed toward revitalizing his ailing radio station or undertaking other humanitarian projects.
“I’m told his dad was a very powerful herbalist whose work attracted a lot of foreigners (he became a beneficiary of his father’s great legacy). Which better way than to have told the dead dad, he’ll rather use the money for a car to build a lasting legacy of herbal training center to honor him?
“Could he have chosen to use the funds to revamp his ailing station and restructure it to perform top-notch in honor of his dad? Could he have done any other humanitarian project with that money in honor of his dad?
“Yes, he could. But he didn’t, he rather chose to bury his dad’s legacy in a tomb. That for me is morally wrong and on that basis, I condemn this singular act of Mr. Atodio.
“No, this doesn’t make you a hero at all, it makes you morally bankrupt,” she added.
Businessman Dr. Norbert, over the weekend, buried his late father in a white Toyota Corolla despite caution from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Dr. Norbert, before his father’s burial, sought permission from the EPA but was denied as the outfit stated the action broke environmental laws.
The businessman, however, followed through with the initial plan of burying his father in a car because of the bond the two shared.
In a video sighted on UTV Ghana’s official Twitter page, the deceased was said to have been laid in a reclined front passenger seat and driven into his grave on the outskirt of the town.
According to the Upper East Correspondent for UTV, Alhassan Abdul Washeed, Dr. Norbert, who is a medical practitioner in Navrongo was invited by the EPA, Kassena Nankana Municipal Assembly, and the National Security to caution him but the former refused.
It is also suspected that Dr. Norbert could be directed to dig up his father’s grave for flouting the rules and pleas of authorities.
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