No State Burial For Ebony

Late popular dancehall artiste, Ebony Reigns, who is to be buried on March 17 won’t get a state burial.

The state, News One has gathered, will rather support the family in the best way it can to put up a befitting funeral for the songstress, whose death has become a subject of national interest.

This comes on heels of earlier media reports that the government is planning with the family to give Ebony, born Priscilla Opoku-Kwarteng, a state burial.

The reports quoted Ebony’s manager, Bullet, for making the claim.

However, the Minister for Tourism, Arts & Culture, Catherine Abelema Afeku, who described Ebony’s death as a great loss to the creative arts industry, disclosed that her ministry is deliberating with the family to give her a befitting burial, not a state burial.

She indicated government has not promised the family a state burial and the family is happy with government’s arrangement so far.

“That’s a misconception. It is a private family issue. We told the family that on behalf of the ministry, we will help give her a befitting burial and that’s exactly what we are doing,” she said on Hitz FM.

“State burials are at the discretion of the president. That’s not what we promised. Nobody told anyone about state burial but the family is happy,” she reiterated.

The late Ebony Reigns died in an accident when travelling from Sunyani to Accra. She died together with her best friend, Francisca Kuri, otherwise called Frankie, and Francis AtsuVondee, a soldier with the Ghana Air Force, believed to be Ebony’s bodyguard.

She passed on exactly a week to her 21st birthday, which was Friday, February 16, 2018.

An overwhelming number of Ghanaians thronged the St Martin’s De Porres School at Dansoman in Accra Sunday to observe her one-week celebration.

She will be buried on March 17, and the family is yet to announce the venue for the funeral.

Source: News One