Care to take some cash with you in your big box? File photo
There’s an old saying that “you can’t take your wealth with you once you’re dead,” but one deceased man from Uganda appears to refute this claim.
Charles Obong, 52, got buried with at least $5,700 (almost P284,000) inside his casket because he reportedly wanted to give it to God as an “offertory” to forgive him for his sins and “save him from hell fire.”
The Uganda government official, who passed away on December 17 after a long bout with an unspecified illness, specifically made the request in his will, the Daily Sun reported.
But after the church discovered his bizarre request, community elders dug up the money and returned it to the man’s family, saying it was taboo to bury someone with money.
The deceased’s brother-in-law confirmed that Obong’s corpse was exhumed with $100 notes amounting to a total of $5,700. He was buried at his ancestral home at Adag-ani village, Bar-pii parish, Aromo Sub-county in Lira District, inside a metallic coffin estimated to have cost over $5 million, the report said.
According to his family, Obong feared that his sins during his tenure—which included multiple counts of corruption—would lead him to be condemned to hell.
He also asked to have his brother and sister to be present when his body was transferred to the coffin, to make sure that his wife secured the money in his coffin.
Meanwhile, one of the members of the clergy in the area, Reverend Joel Agel Awio, was appalled by the move and said no amount of money could buy eternal life, and that God could not accept such “a golden handshake.” Khristian Ibarrola