Within a spate of three days, three major stampedes of national concern occurred in Nigeria claiming the lives of not less than 84 souls. They were great disasters with common underlining factors.
Let me disentangle the issues. On Wednesday, 18th December, 2024, an event was planned by a former wife of Ooni Of Ife, Prophetess Naomi Silekunola through her NGO named Wings Foundation and heavily promoted by an Ibadan based Radio Station, Agidigbo FM, owned by Alhaji Oriyomi Hamzat.
It was meant to provide cash handouts and food distribution to children (from 18 years downward). Attendees had started arriving at the venue (Islamic High School, Bashorun, Ibadan) a day before the incidence and by early morning of the programme date which was meant to start by 10.00 am, the whole frontage of the school had been filled up with thousands of mostly women with their children.
A conservative estimate puts the number around twenty thousand for a programme planned for less than five thousand children. The organizers claimed they had arranged that security personnel would be in place by 8.00am.
They probably never envisaged the population and the very early arrival of most of the attendees. At around 7.00am, the stampede occurred and the number of deaths was put at 35 conservatively.
The aftermath of that incidence was the arrest of the philanthropist, Prophetess Naomi Silekunola, some workers of Agidigbo FM Radio and innocent others including the Principal of the school, whose duties did not include issuing approval for the use of the school premises. It is the responsibility of the Ministry of Education.
The organizers had sought for approval from the Ministry through Agidigbo FM owner who paid the necessary fee into the bank account of the state government as directed by the Ministry in a form of approval in principle while awaiting the direct approval by the Commissioner who had travelled out of the state. He did not come back until days after the incidence.
While the Principal did not have the capacity to stop the programme because the school had only one gateman, attempts were made to go ahead with the programme. Alhaji Oriyomi Hamzat was known to a friend of the government and had in the past harassed so many Principals with the full support of the then Permanent Secretary of Teaching Service Commission, Mrs Grace Odebunmi and the recently dissolved board. Infact, he and his workers went round the schools on monitoring activities.
These were private citizens. This is in addition to the fact that Oriyomi had obtained formal approval for about two years for the use of the school field for a weekly religious programme. Indeed, the organizers never contemplated using Islamic High School, it was Oriyomi who convinced them to change to Islamic High School.
One can then see the dilemma of the Principal who is currently wasting away in the custody of the police in Iyaganku Station with his live in danger at a time the country is having a return of Covid and Cholera.
Smartly like an average Nigerian politician facing court cases, Alhaji Oriyomi fainted on Wednesday and claimed to be receiving treatment and on Friday, Prophetess Naomi had her own fainting exercise and taken out of Iyaganku to an unknown health facility.
The Principal, an innocent level 17 official of government, who could ordinarily have been admitted to administrative bail, remains incarcerated in Iyaganku for the past five days when legally the Police could only hold suspects for 48 hours without trial. Several groups and individuals have denounced this act of the police.
Fingers are being pointed at the complicity of the state government over the matter. Interestingly some others including decorators and some workers of some of the rental agencies are being held too.
When impunity becomes the order of the day in a country, citizens, who ordinarily should have been patriotic are forced to start hating their own country because of the recklessness of institutions and individuals.
This case is just a reflection of the high level of poverty and greed among many Nigerians, a worrisome situation that is not being properly handled. Because, how do you explain two similar incidences in two other locations in the country?
In the country’s capital city, Abuja, about 13 people died too at the Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Maitama, where food items were being distributed on Saturday 21st December, 2024 around 6.30 am.
Same day and as if these were not enough, another philanthropist, Chief Earnest Obiejesi ,in Okija, Anambra state , organized a yearly Christmas rice distribution programme for vulnerable individuals which again led to another stampede causing the death of a minimum of 36 lives.
The questions that have been agitating my minds are:
1. Are governments unaware of the prevailing strangulating hold of poverty in the country?
2. Why has there not been any helping hands from state governments and full support of individuals and organisations ready to offer assistance to the suffering masses in food, financial and materials provision?
3. Should innocent Nigerians continued to be treated like criminals?
4. What impact will the three stampedes have on philanthropism?