A rash of stampedes that occurred last Wednesday and Saturday are avoidable, infernal wastes of human lives. A total of 74 persons, including children, were said to have died and scores critically injured, in an impatient shove and scuffle by beneficiaries to gain access into the venues of charity outreaches where philanthropic organizations had arranged to dole out palliatives for the Yuletide season.
According to reports, 35 of the casualties, all children, were trampled to death last Wednesday in Ibadan, Oyo State capital; 29, many of them children too, died in Okija in Ihiala Local Government Area of Anambra State, while 10 persons, seven of them also children, met their death in Maitama, Abuja. As a matter of fact, the Anambra casualty figure, volunteered by eyewitnesses, is highly conservative because, even though the police confirmed only three deaths, a prominent member of the community told some reporters that he personally counted over 40 bodies at the morgue!
The last two incidents occurred the same day, Saturday. In the two weekend incidents, residents trampled themselves, leading to deaths, in the course of scuffling to grab the food items being distributed by the organizers of the outreaches. The Inspector-General of Police, like the Ibadan case, has already ordered the probe of the Abuja and Anambra stampedes.
These, to say the least, are tragedies of monumental connotations. What is more, they are a misma of national shame, because they are oblique signpost of the depth of poverty, hunger and misery stalking the land. It is the degree of slough into which the nation has sunk.
The Ibadan event, a Christmas fun fair, organized by Wings Foundation, owned by Prophetess Naomi Silekunola, a former Queen of the Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Ogunwusi, according to reports, planned to dole out N5,000 and food to each of 5,000 kids.
Parents, who ostensibly saw this as ‘manna’ from heaven, mobilized their children and by 7:30 am that Wednesday, a motley crowd of over 7,500 had already massed up at the gate of the Islamic High School, Bashorun, Ibadan, venue of the event, for an event billed to start at 10:00am! Some parents were even so desperate that they arrived the venue the previous day with their children, all in a bid to secure vantage positions to grab the promised monetary gift of an ordinarily paltry N5,000 and food. They obviously reasoned that the largesse might not be enough to go round. What a pity!
The Abuja stampede occurred at the Holy Trinity Catholic Church, Maitama, Abuja, around 6am during an annual charity event organised by parishes of the Catholic Church to distribute foodstuffs to the poor and the vulnerable in the community.
According to an eyewitness, the crowd remained orderly until around 5am. “Many people came from Mararaba, Nyanya, and Mpape areas to benefit from the church’s food distribution. To be honest, the church didn’t anticipate the size of the crowd that showed up. Although there were two security operatives on duty, they couldn’t manage the growing crowd effectively.
“Initially, everyone was orderly, but as the day broke, the number of people doubled. In their desperation to get the rice first, people began pushing and shoving. Before we knew it, we started hearing cries for help from those who had fallen or sustained injuries. The police came to rescue those injured and dispersed others who waited behind with the hope that the distribution would continue.”
The National Director of Social Communications at the Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria, Reverend Father Mike Umoh, who confirmed the deaths, said: “Yes, it is true that a sad incident was recorded in the process of the charity outreach of the parish today at Holy Trinity Catholic Church, Maitama”. He said almost every viable parish of the church often organizes such outreach during this season yearly.
“In fact, they( beneficiaries) begin to inform one another about it. This exercise is usually taken up by the social arm of the church, known as the Justice and Peace Development. They coordinate it on behalf of every parish. So it’s something that has been on for years,” he said.
In the Anambra case, the stampede occurred at the gate of Obijackson Centre, Oliha, venue of the sharing of palliatives, including 25kg bags of rice, vegetable oil, and money. The palliatives were donated by Chief Ernest Obiejesi, popularly known as Obijackson, on behalf of Obijackson Foundation. The charity event is said to be an annual exercise by the foundation to mark the Yuletide with the people of the community.
Eyewitnesses said the victims, particularly elderly women and children, were trampled upon as they struggled to gain entrance amid a large and uncontrollable crowd. It was learnt that security operatives had a hectic time battling to control the surging crowd, who were still forcing their way into the premises.
An eyewitness told newsmen: “The stampede occurred at about 7.45am as the gate of the arena was about to be opened because many struggled to gain entrance. Many people, particularly the elderly and children, were trampled upon… The crowd at the gate was just too much to control, and it took reinforcement by security operatives before normalcy was restored. I counted over 10 lifeless bodies lying on the ground.”
We deeply sympathize with the grieving families who lost their kids in such unfortunate circumstances. The pain of losing loved ones, especially children, is indescribably penetrating for parents. Only providence can console the bereaved.
There are, however, vital lessons thrown up by the tragedies. And it is good to mind them to avoid a recrudescence of the stampedes. First, from eyewitness accounts, the turn of events could probably have been avoided if the organizers had planned the charity outreaches with adequate foresight. From all indications, poor logistics, including lack of effective crowd control measures, were believed to have largely contributed to the three stampede tragedies, which bore very striking similarities.
The two personalities mentioned in connection with the Ibadan event, Prophetess Silekunola, and the owner of Agidigbo FM, Oriyomi Hamzat, share two virtues in common: They are both good-natured and extremely popular, especially with the less-privileged.
Extremely beautiful Prophetess Silekunola, who became popular as Queen Naomi, especially when her marital relationship with the Yoruba’s foremost monarch was developing hiccups, has been engaged in popular crusades around towns in the Southwest, as a minister of the gospel. Besides, she has been spreading agape love(God’s kind of love) to the downtrodden through philanthropic activities, better known as liberality in Christendom. According to the Ooni, Naomi had been holding this kind of fun fair as a yearly ritual since her days as a queen in Ife palace. She continued, even after she vacated the palace.
Oriyomi Hamzat, an On-Air Personality, has been a consistent human rights crusader fighting for justice for the less-privileged. His Agidigbo 88.7 FM is extremely popular in Southwest, most especially in Ibadan and environs. He became a household name in the Southwest following his consistent media campaign to ensure justice for Timothy Adegoke, a post-graduate student of the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun, who died in questionable circumstances between November 5 and 7, 2021, when he lodged at Hilton Hotels, Ile-Ife, owned by Chief Ramon Adedoyin.
Although Agidigbo FM has dispelled the information trending online and offline that the medium was part of the fun fair’s organizers, but it(Agidigbo FM), according to the official statement issued by its Director of Programmes, Olayinka AbdulWahab, partly handled the publicity for the event.
With the popularity of Hamzat, his Agidigbo FM and ex-Queen Naomi, it is befuddling that they obviously did not envisage the massive turnout at the event. Besides, they ought to know that parents normally accompany their children to events like fun fairs; more so with the promise of monetary gift attached, especially these days of the worsening costs-of-living crisis.
So, with the possibility of parents accompanying their children or wards, the organizers should naturally have expected double the 5,000 figure they initially planned for. They should, therefore, have arranged a 10,000-capacity venue, like an open field(to avoid stampede) and made special arrangements for crowd control, like using tickets and involving private security personnel or volunteer able-bodied men to take up that responsibility.
Hamzat, as the media partner, ought to have advised Queen Naomi appropriately to either change the venue or postpone the event when the unusual crowd at the gate of the venue became noticeable.
It was too late to have resorted to announcing that people should stop coming to the venue the way Agidigbo FM did. It is surprising that Queen Naomi, an otherwise cerebral minister of God with the heart of gold, especially towards the less-privileged, became mired in this kind of embarrassingly shoddy planning when this is not her first experience. Eyewitnesses actually blame poor planning as the major cause of the tragedy. It is, in fact, difficult to believe that Hamzat is not part of the organizers contrary to his claims, because an eyewitness alleged that the stampede started when he(Hamzat) got to the crowded gate of the school and ordered that the gate be flung open to allow the crowd go in.
If that is true, the move might have been well-intentioned seeing that the people were already becoming unruly and agitated; but it was a serious miscalculation. The gate should not have been flung open without first putting in place crowd control measures, which would have ensured an orderly passage of the crowd into the venue.
Some of the parents, who witnessed the Ibadan stampede, spoke anonymously to some national dailies about their experiences, which they described as quite harrowing. One of them was quoted as regretting her going for the fun fair. “I will never do that again in my life,” she said ruefully, adding: “I made that decision late on Tuesday night. I was staying at Agbowo in the Ibadan North Local Government Area of the state.
“A co-tenant approached me that night that we should go to the event the following day (Wednesday), and I informed my husband, who permitted me to go alongside my children. I left home a few minutes after 5am with my two children. One is three-and-a-half years and the second seven years.
“We got there around 5:40am. By then, the whole area was already tense. The turnout was massive. The organisers locked the gate and prevented everybody from gaining access to the venue of the programme.
“Shortly after, Oriyomi Hamzat came in and ordered that the gate be left open so that we could gain entrance into the venue. But because we were not patient enough, everybody tried to gain access to the venue at the same time, resulting in a stampede.
“For almost five minutes, I couldn’t see my daughter. About five people already covered her. They were trampling on me as well. I managed to locate her and started biting them one after the other before I was able to rescue her. As I rescued her, someone collected her from me and rushed down to the ambulance, where they gave her first aid. She is recovering very fast now. The other child is hale and hearty.”
Another parent, who expressed gratitude to God that her child was fast recovering, also regretted ever venturing into the venue of the ill-fated fun fair. “It was a terrible experience that I will never wish anybody, even my enemy. I didn’t know if I was dead or not, because it got to a stage when I was asking someone if I was still alive.”
She continued: “I was there at a far distance. I saw people throwing in their children through the fence before they also jumped the fence, all in the name of meeting Mr Oriyomi(Hamzat). There was laxity in security. I expected Amotekun, Operation Burst and Road Safety to be there. I couldn’t do a video recording so that those useless hoodlums would not hijack my phone. Besides, I was holding my children with both hands.
“This is such a big lesson… that human beings are the most difficult to control… It is so sad. The organizers didn’t do well at all. I was there with my children that morning by exactly 6:40 with the hope that I would obtain tickets and secure space for my children.
“Since this thing was free, they(organizers) should have expected more than 5,000 people. Security people should also have been arranged to ensure orderliness. Also, tickets should have been made available, so that immediately you get to the gate, you collect your ticket and those in charge will then walk you to your seat.”
Owing to the slipshod manner in which the event was planned, therefore, the struggle to enter the venue through the gate became an unfortunate—though unintended—contest of fists and fitness for the motley crowd of children and their parents, like a herd of ravenous fauna literally let loose to grab some prey thrust at them.
The police have already taken some people, including ex-Queen Naomi, into custody as investigations into the circumstances leading to the loss of those kids continue. Hamzat and Naomi have, however, reportedly been hospitalized for shock. While Hamzat was said to have passed out at the venue when he saw children being trampled to death, Naomi reportedly collapsed in police custody. Both of them are receiving treatment at an undisclosed medical facility in Ibadan.
Meanwhile, Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State, who has been quite responsive since the tragedy, has instructed organizers of Christmas parties and other entertainment activities, especially this Yuletide season, in the state to give safety and crowd control measures a prime of place to guide against a reoccurrence of the stampede.
He has already cancelled events to mark his birthday slated for Wednesday, December 25, to mourn with the grieving parents who lost their children or wards in the stampede. “I will stay indoors that day,” the governor firmly resolved.
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, has also expressed deep sorrow over the deaths and ordered full investigations by the relevant authorities. Already, following presidential intervention, investigations into the stampede are being directly coordinated by the Office of the Inspector-General of Police.
The President, in a statement by his Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, also directed that safety measures be put in place to prevent a reoccurrence. He extended his heartfelt condolences to the government and people of Oyo State and the grieving families.
The statement said: “President Tinubu stands in solidarity with the affected families and offers prayers that the Almighty God will grant peace to the souls of those who have departed. It is imperative to determine whether negligence or deliberate actions contributed to this painful incident.”
Tinubu demanded accountability, urging the Oyo State Government “to implement stringent safety measures, including a comprehensive review of safety protocols at public events, strict enforcement of regulations, and regular audits of event venues, to prevent a reoccurrence.”
He also appealed to event organisers to prioritise safety, especially for children, stressing the importance of professional security, protocol and logistics. “Our children’s safety and well-being remain paramount. No event should ever compromise their safety or take precedence over their lives,” the President admonished.
President Tinubu, who is already in Lagos for the Yuletide celebration, had to cancel his weekend official engagements, which included watching the boat parade and other activities of the Boat Regatta from the waterfront of his Queen’s Drive residence in Ikoyi, to mourn the victims of Abuja and Anambra stampedes.
Commiserating with the victims of the incidents in Anambra and Abuja, Tinubu urged states and relevant authorities to enforce strict crowd control measures immediately. He observed that the two tragic incidents bore a distressing resemblance to the recent incident in Ibadan.
He said local and state authorities should no longer tolerate operational lapses by organisations and corporate bodies involved in charitable and humanitarian activities.
Good talk. But Mr President should go beyond rhetorics. He should immediately go back to the drawing board and summon a conclave of economic buffs to develop a thorough ‘home-grown’ economic blueprint that will formulate economic buffers that will turn around the nation’s comatose economy within the shortest possible time. This is with a view to mitigating the poverty, hunger and misery that the current harsh policies have foisted on the nation and put paid to avoidable embarrassments such as the unfortunate tragic stampedes.
Inflation continues to spiral, while naira value continues to fluctuate against the US dollar, following the two policy missteps of fuel subsidy withdrawal and floating of the naira by the present administration, without first developing safety nets or cushions against the harsh effects of those policies. The result has been the consistently astronomical rises of goods and services, including food items and transportation.
For example, according to the latest report of the National Bureau of Statistics(NBS), the nation’s inflation rate rose for the third straight month in November, 2024, spiralling to a near-30-year high of 34.6 per cent, up from 33.9 per cent in the previous month. Food inflation surged to 39.93 per cent in November, 2024, a sharp rise from 32.84 per cent in November, 2023.
The NBS report attributes the figures to higher prices of staple food items such as rice, yams, guinea corn, maize etc. “The core inflation, which excludes the prices of volatile agricultural products and energy quickened to a fresh all-time high of 28.75 per cent in November(2024), up from 28.37 per cent in the previous month,” says the Bureau.
Also, as at last Friday, the naira was N1,633.75 to US dollar. During the past weeks, the exchange rate of US dollar to Nigerian naira has fluctuated between a high of N1,644.200 and a low of N1,626.730.
So, it is high time we stopped this sheepish and servile attitude towards the Brettwood institutions—the World Bank and International Monetary Fund— and their ‘poisoned chalice’ called economic recipes. They are hardly designed to work in an environment plagued with fiscal indiscipline and massive corruption like ours.
For example, the Federal Government has had to spend a lot on palliatives to cushion the effects of its harsh economic policies, but most of those palliatives in form of cash and food items being channeled through the states hardly reach the vulnerable population for which they are met.
We have written so much about this. As we have noted in earlier editorials, a lot of savings have been raked in since the subsidy withdrawal and revenue has continued to balloon for the three tiers of government— federal, state and local governments — through their monthly allocations. In fact, they now share allocations in trillions, but the humongous funds do not reflect concomitantly in the quality of life of the people.
In these austere times that demand frugality and sobriety, many of our political leaders, especially governors and federal lawmakers, are still dissipating resources into ostentation and outright profligacy. Some governors are even reported to be making outlandish appointments and expanding bureaucracy, appointing a risible retinue of aides they visibly do not need, while their people ‘roast’ in the cauldron of misery all around them!
Now is the time to jettison the Brettwood institutions’ blueprints and look inwards for our own ‘home-grown’ recipes that will suit our peculiar environment. These people(Brettwood institutions)do not seem to mean well for us because the subsidies they are asking us to withdraw are being enjoyed in their own countries. They will also do anything to help their currencies not to lose any pinch of value, whereas, they are pressurizing us to bastardize our own currency.
Let us muster courage to pursue our own environment-friendly economic tonic, just like the Asian Tigers did and freed their economies from the stranglehold of the imperial powers and they are today controlling a fat chunk of the world economy. Rome was not built in a day. We will get there too if we dare to chart that course. And the time to begin is now!
