By Moses Oludele Idowu
“The rich man’s wealth is his strong city: the destruction of the poor is their poverty.” ( Proverbs 10:15)
It is now confirmed that at least 32 children lost their lives on Wednesday December 18 during a stampede at a Carnival in Ibadan.
The carnival was organised by Naomi Ogunwusi, the ex- Queen of Ooni of Ife, and had been given wide publicity by the Agidigbo FM anchored by Oriyomu Hamzat.
I want to commiserate with those who lost their loved ones and many families involved in this tragedy. This tragedy is avoidable and even preventable. Those children do not have to die but this is Nigeria, a land of ungoverned spaces, corporate irresponsibility and impunity.
I have several thoughts on my mind that I want to explore here before I round up.
The first thing is Nigerians need to know, if they do not already know, that they have enemies, real mortal and dangerous enemies. I will identify only one today.
The number one enemy and the greatest of them all facing Nigeria and Nigerians today is Poverty. I can hazard a guess: not a single child of a rich man or even middle class family was among the victims of the carnival yesterday. Let us get this clear once and for all. The real enemy destroying Nigerians today is poverty.
Think of it. The organisers advertised for 5000 children for a program just to give them snacks or food or even gifts and about 7500 turned up. As early as 5.00 am. Just because of food or what? This is poverty in clear demonstration.
These children were killed by the poverty of.their parents. I do not despise them but I am saddened that 25 years after democracy was put in place and 10 years of APC, this is what Nigerians have been reduced to. Just for food.
It is not uncommon to see Nigerians even in Lagos queue up because of loaves of bread while their rulers and their children are buying million-dollar properties offshore.
There is one thing today that is increasing in Nigeria. Poverty. In the last 18 months another 11 million citizens have fallen into the poverty trap due to the economically – harmful policies of this Government.
Yet when you point this out their spin doctors and internet attack dogs would come at you with their usual strategies ranging from deflection, obfuscation to interference. Poverty is here; it is alive and well too
This is the reality on stark display at Ibadan yesterday, Wednesday 18th of December 2024.
May God save Nigerians from poverty and from the leadership who impoverished them.
The advanced nations of the West built on Judeo-Christian epistemology know that poverty is a destruction and that is why they fight it. They support their weak and vulnerable group through several subventions, support and subsidies and cash transfusion.
Meanwhile they tell our own rulers to remove subsidies on basic items that affect the poor like fuel, power, education etc because it is harmful to their economy. And our rulers buy these lies from them because “whom the gods would destroy they first make mad.”
Preventable tragedy
Still this tragedy is wholly preventable. I have several questions to ask and I demand answers from anyone who can provide them.
Let me start with the organisers of the event. Naomi is the former wife of Ooni Ogunwusi. She is also called a prophetess who runs ( or used to run) a “Christian Pentecostal ministry.” This fact arrests my attention and curiosity. Why would a prophetess organize an event to commemorate the Birth of Christ in an Islamic School in a city suffused with even larger neutral secular spaces and even churches? Is this really a carnival? I am not imputing any motive just asking questions.
I ask a question and I have the right to ask questions. We have seen and heard so many things along this line and this question is not unreasonable. There was a politician in Kwara then that every time he organised a program to give gifts to people something would just go wrong and scores of people would die. Not once or twice. It is common knowledge and anyone can Google what I am saying.
These kinds of things have happened too much in this nation that it is time we should begin to press for answers. Because at the end of the day and promises of probes nothing will come out of it
I am simply curious that of all the many spacious places in this city where I live myself no where is good enough to mark an event to honour Christ except an Islamic School. And by a “prophetess”?
Available facility
Two, when she was making repeated announcements on a mass media about the program what facilities did she put in place to cater to the envisaged crowd or did she not envisage any? Why has she not spoken since the incident? One of the victims said when they complained they ( organisers ) even wanted to fight them. No word of comfort except again to fight them for losing their children?
Then I have some questions for the media agency the Agidigbo FM and especially Oriyomi Hamzat the anchor man. I read the release he hurriedly put out to extricate himself and his organisation from any culpability and involvement in the tragedy.
Unfortunately it doesn’t work like that. Many of the people who went was because the advert was carried and hammered by Hamzat organization and the trust they have in him. More so he did not specify during the publicity that his organization wasn’t part of the program.
Is it true that his organization was aware that as far back as 5.00 AM multitudes of children had already gathered? When they knew that what effort did they make to avert this tragedy?
Does this Islamic School have enough capacity for even 5000 children that they were advertising for, not to even talk of 7500 reported to have shown up?
Government
Then the Oyo State Ministry of Environment has questions to answer too. The officials must be aware of the programme since it was repeatedly advertised on one of the mainstream media in the city.
Did they even carry out any due diligence about this program beforehand? Did they ascertain from the organisers what facilities they had in place to take care of 5000 children of the state? Did they visit the school themselves beforehand to ensure that there was enough on ground to meet security and other challenges? That is the purpose of government.
A preacher went to Jerusalem, Israel to stage a crusade. A person, an Israeli citizen who was already sick died during the meeting. Just because of this singular fatality who already had issues the Israeli Police was ready to cancel the permit and stop the crusade altogether.
But for the fact that this person was a powerful American evangelist well- known and for reasons of not hurting the relations between two friendly nations they would have stopped the programme that night. Just because of one person. They asked several questions from the organisers just because one person died.
These children have been sacrificed to our usual lack of order, management and crowd control strategies. It is certain if government and its agents have done their own for a program bringing such huge number of children this would not have happened. But this is Nigeria, Land of impunity and immunity.
Few months ago some aliens brought dynamites to residential areas (or is it bombs ) that razed and damaged some houses in the same Ibadan killing and injuring some in the process. Any outcome from that investigation?
Any news about the aliens? We have forgotten and we have moved on.
This too will go the same way once public anger and temper cool. Nothing will be done considering the profile of the people involved. No official will lose his or her job. And Nigerians with their short attention span and their poor memories will forget and move on. Collective amnesia.
Till the next tragedy unfolds.
Investigation in Nigeria
All the newspaper reports that I read noted that the organisers have been arrested but not a single one mentioned the names of those arrested. Is that news? So even the Press is part of the Conspiracy.
Nothing will happen. The investigation is just to dampen public anger and douse fear.
In Nigeria investigation is not done to get to the root of anything or to make people face the penalties for their crimes but to prevent masses from reacting in anger and doing untoward things.
In the meantime let us understand that our greatest enemy today is poverty. It is not Boko Haram or IPOB or even other ethnic groups. It is poverty, widespread poverty. It is what fuels insecurity. It is why our life expectancy is declining and why people are dying for common mere preventable diseases.
Poverty is our enemy and we should fight it. Anyone, any government fighting poverty among the masses by genuine programmes and policies is our friend; anyone or government widening and deepening poverty among the people by her policies, methods, program is our number one enemy no matter who he is and which party he belongs to. Whether he is a pastor, politician, economist, minister of government or party…, whatever and whoever impoverishes the masses is an enemy, a number one enemy. You should fight him.
As long as poverty increases in the land incidents like that of yesterday will recur. The only solution is for the average man to have access to basic things like food and shelter.
Once again I commiserate with the families of those who lost loved ones. Indeed the Bible is vindicated: “the destruction of the poor is their poverty.”
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© Moses Oludele Idowu
December 19, 2024
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