Survivors relived yesterday the Saturday
stampede in which more than 20 worshippers
died in Anambra State.
The death toll was downgraded from 28 to 25.
Three of those presumed dead were revived, it
was gathered.
The Catholic Archbishop of Onitsha Diocese,
the Most Rev. Valerian Okeke, attributed the
stampede at the Holy Ghost Adoration Centre,
Uke, Idemili South Local Council Area of
Anambra State, to “false alarm’’.
Rev. Okeke told a news conference that the
stampede was not caused by sabotage and
that that the church was not suspecting any
sabotage. “It is an unfortunate incident,’’ he
said.
Represented by Rev. Fr. Uche Ukor, the Director
of Social Communications, Rev. Okeke also
denied reports that the stampede was caused
by a snake.
“In the early hours of Saturday, November 2,
there was a stampede moments after prayers
at Holy Ghost Adoration Centre, Uke, in Idemili
South Local Government Area of Anambra
State.
“The stampede, which occurred while people
were going home, resulted in the loss of some
lives. Some are still injured and receiving
treatment in some hospitals.
“The stampede was reportedly caused by a
false alarm raised by somebody in the crowd
along one of the narrow roads out of the town.
“The crowd was so huge that people wanting
to leave all at the same time, made it very
difficult for people to find enough space to
move.
“Vigil was usually held at the centre on every
first Friday of the month.
“The crowd at the centre was unprecedented
on this first Friday of November, probably
because it was the Solemnity of All Saints – a
holy day of obligation for Catholic faithful.”
“Save for the unprecedented crowd, the vigil
started and ended normally,’’ he said, and
expressed sadness over the ugly incident.
“My heart goes out to the families and friends
of those who lost their lives in the incident.
On whether the incident had a political
connotation, Rev. Okeke said the church would
not delve into politics or speak for any
politician.
He, however, confirmed that Sen. Chris Ngige,
the candidate of the All Progressives Congress
(APC) in the November 16 election, did not
attend the programme.
Three of the victims regained consciousness at
the hospitals, it was gathered.
Dr. Ngige, who visited the recuperating victims
in the hospitals, donated N500,000.00 to take
care of their hospital bills.
Governor Peter Obi, in a broadcast, declared a
three-day mourning, which ends today. He said
it began since Saturday and denied any link
with the stampede, asserting that he left the
vigil at 3.00am.
Obi said he would set up a panel to probe the
incident and exonerated himself from the
stampede. But he blamed All Progressives
Congress (APC) candidate Ngige, whose
supporters he said, were at the ground to
campaign.
But the Ngige campaign team described the
governor’s allegation as “tantrums” which
ought not to come at a time of mourning.
Obi promised that the government would take
care of the expenses of the injured and
appealed to the people to remain calm and
prayerful.
Ngige, commiserating with the Archbishop of
Onitsha Catholic Diocese Catholic, Dr. Valerie
Okeke, and the owner of the Adoration Centre,
Rev Obimma, described the incident as
“unfortunate”.
Members of the Chris Ngige Campaign
Organisation told the Obi administration to stop
linking Sen. Ngige to the tragedy, adding that
the people were no “fools”.
The Communication Director, Chief Charles
Amilo, in a statement, said this is the period of
mourning and sadness for the people of the
state instead of throwing tantrums by the All
Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA)
government to a clean person.
A survivor, Comrade Aloysius Attah, Chairman
of the Civil Liberties Organisation (CLO) in
Anambra State, who was at the vigil with his
wife, recounted the stampede.
He said: “I was there and my heart is bleeding
with all these stories making the rounds about
the ugly incident. At a time everybody should
be mourning, you can see they are politicising
it. Why would it be so? I was there and if I
wasn’t there, it would have been a different
thing. I would have been deceived by all the
stories I am reading and or hearing from some
political quarters.
“What actually happened was that the Spiritual
Director of the centre, Rev Fr Emmanuel
Obimma, asked for the final prayer.
We raised our hands and prayed and at the end
of the prayer, everybody started going home.
“I was with my wife. As we were going, we
suddenly saw people rushing back and, judging
the crowd that was unprecedented in the arena,
I sensed that there would be a stampede and
because we didn’t know what actually caused
the rush back, I positioned myself to escape the
possible ripple effect and rushed away from the
traffic. I went the adjacent way.
“But, immediately in a spontaneous move, my
wife was already under the surging crowd, but I
mustered my last strength to shield her and I
dragged her to my corner to save her from
being trampled upon. It would have been a
different story by now. At the end of the
stampede, many were revived and those who
were at the scene where it started revealed that
somebody shouted, fire! fire! because of a
spark from the frying pan of a woman at the
road side frying plantain. People started
rushing back, thinking it was a fire.
Attah said people should be concerned about
the families of those who died and stop
overheating the polity because of selfish
concerns. He said the situation worsened
because of the number of motorbikes on the
road at the same time as some fell over
motorbikes.
Another survivor, Ikwunne Nriezeadi, said he
volunteered to assist in the revival of victims
and to ferry others to the hospitals for medical
attention. He said he heard people saying that
it was politically- motivated.
“Whatever they are saying, I don’t want to take
up issues with politicians who are mentioning
peoples’ names.
“It was on the way back home that people
started rushing back and started trampling on
others. I personally heard people shouting ‘go
back!’, ‘go back!’ and that caused panic and
tension. So, we started assisting them to the
hospitals and at the hospital they carried the
dead into the mortuary.“
Another witness, Kenechukwu (surname
withheld) insisted that the woman frying
plantain was the secondary cause of the
incident. He wondered why people should be
shouting fire when such a huge crowd was
surging.
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