Charities, Fatalities and the Victimisation of Benefactors – Jude Ndukwe

By Jude Ndukwe

The last few days have been quite tragic for the poor masses of Nigeria, and very traumatic for their benefactors. No fewer than 67 people, including children, died from stampedes resulting from the rush for palliatives provided by philanthropists and charity organisations.

In Bashorun, Ibadan, for example, where Naomi Silekunola, former wife of the Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi, organized a funfair at the Islamic High School, 35 people from the thousands that had gathered for the event died from the stampede that ensued. Three days later at the Holy Trinity Catholic Church, Maitama, Abuja, the Society of St Vincent de Paul, a notable charity organization in the Catholic Church that has been carrying out its functions of reaching out to the poor, the needy, and the downtrodden, for scores of years, in its bid to reach out to them this festive season, organized a palliative outreach. However, unlike in the past, this season’s event was marred by an unfortunate and unforeseen stampede that claimed 10 lives and left few others injured.

On the same day in Okija, Ihiala LGA of Anambra State, 22 people were reported to have died from the stampede that occurred at the palliative outreach organized by Obijackson Foundation, an organization funded by popular businessman, Ernest Obiaejesi a.k.a Obijackson, for the poor and needy, at his residence.

These deaths as unfortunate as they are obviously caught the organisers unawares because they never envisaged the unprecedented large crowds that turned up for the palliatives. An organization like Society of St Vincent de Paul has been in the vocation of reaching out to the poor for years and have hardly experienced the tragedy that happened in Abuja. They, like Naomi Silekunola and Ernest Obiaejesi, must have grossly underestimated the level of poverty and hunger ravaging Nigerians as a result of multiple anti-poor and anti-people policies of government that have pushed many households further lower the poverty line. They possibly knew that more Nigerians were now poorer than in the recent past but what they did not know was that this set of Nigerians had become so poor to the extent of becoming so desperate for succour that they could inadvertently push one another even to death.

One can only imagine how traumatic this unfortunate situation must have been for the organisers who went out of their way to bring succour to the downtrodden only to end up having deaths in their camps! And the authorities are not even helping matters. Rather than show empathy and seek ways of condoling with families of the bereaved, show solidarity to the injured and assist the already traumatized organisers ameliorate the effects of seeing those they sought to help die, they were not only blamed but also arrested for what the police said was negligence on their side for not informing them of the events so they could provide personnel to control the crowds.

In fact, in the case of Naomi and her associates, they were already charged with “conspiracy, murder, and negligent acts causing harm”. This is a most uncharitable thing for the police to do. While it is their duty to ensure law, order and justice, circumstances leading to the deaths and the genuine intents of the organisers ought to have been considered as a matter of prioritising humanitarian services that were meant to benefit the victims over the pursuit of legalistic ends. After all, if not for the hardship imposed upon the people and which has further crippled the economy and impoverished the masses, the numbers that thronged these venues would have been far fewer compared to those that turned up and such tragedies would have been avoided.

In the case of the Holy Trinity Catholic Church, Abuja, it was reported that people started arriving the venue as early as 4am on the day. Such has never happened in the history of such outreaches by the organizing society, St Vincent de Paul. The level of hunger and poverty ravaging the people was certainly grossly underrated.

The police will do well to release all those arrested in connection with these deaths as a way of commencing the healing process for all those involved. The real casualties of these stampedes are not only those who died or got injured, or those left to mourn or cater to the injured, but also those in whose camps of generousity death visited.

The truth is that even if the police were to be present at the venues to provide crowd control services, there was no guarantee that the deaths could have been prevented because the number of people who thronged the venues was unprecedented. An example is the Christmas Day procession in Gombe that was rammed into with a vehicle by a yet-to-be identified man leading to various degrees of injury to 22 people. The sad incident could not be prevented despite the presence of the police engaged by the organisers to escort the participants. The culprit did not only successfully ram into the procession, he also escaped. In such circumstances, sometimes, the police can be as helpless as the victims and organisers.

Even the Nigeran military despite its famed precise attacks against state enemies have caused several deaths in the “accidental” bombing of civilians. From Rann village in Borno where a military strike “accidentally” killed 115 civilians in 2017, through Muturji village in Zamfara State where 64 civilians were “mistakenly” killed in an airstrike on the 18th of December, 2022, through the December 2023 military airstrike that killed 85 civilians who were participating in a religious procession in Kaduna, and which the Ministry of Defence described as a “needless tragedy” that “inadvertently affected members of the community”, to the January 2024 airstrikes that also “inadvertently” killed 40 herders in Doma village of Nasarawa State and dozens of vilgilantes in Galadima Kogo, Niger State, respectively.

The question one may want to ask the police is, who has been arrested for these several “accidental” deaths?

The police should withdraw the charges brought against these public-spirited benefactors and release others arrested in connection with the deaths at palliative centres. This will serve as a way of genuinely commencing a healing process for all concerned. This practice of revictimizing the victims who also include the sponsors will not augur well for society. Not even the dead will be happy that those who tried to help them were arrested by agents of those who pushed them into near-irredeemable poverty.

It is a new reality of poverty levels in Nigeria and one hopes that charity organizations and public-spirited individuals are not discouraged by the actions of the police in rendering help to those who really need them and that having seen that there is a huge spike in the poverty level, strategies would be evolved to avoid such unfortunate incidents in the future.

May the dead find rest in Paradise and may the injured recover quickly!

Jude Ndukwe sent this piece from Abuja and can be reached via stjudendukwe@gmail.com; +2348023140065