The reported deaths of two students of the Nasarawa State University in a stampede is to say the least very shameful.
This ungly incident was right in the campus of the university on Friday, March 22.
Two facts depict the deaths as failure of leadership.
One is that the impoverishing regime in Nigeria has turned citizens who hitherto fed and took care of themselves to depend on the government for food handouts. It’s like the worst level any country can descend into.
The next is the poor management of the situation that showed in the summoning of over 1000 thousand students into an arena to queue for the food in the hot Keffi sun.
The management of the university and the state government should have reasonably adopted alternative measures to reach out to the students with whatever they had for them.
All the students belong to departments, study in classrooms, and live in hostels. There would have been no harm to either invite them in batches to a place for the distribution or take the supplies to their classes or hostels or even your their department offices.
It was thoughtless and uncaring to summon them to a common ground, which looked humiliating and degrading to their reputation.
Nigerian government doesn’t seen to learn from mistakes.
On February 23, it was exactly the same incident in Lagos where about four persons died in a similar queue in an attempt to buy rice at reduced rate at the office of the Nigerian Customs.
This month is precisely 10 years Nigeria experienced similar chaos and calamity at the Nigerian Immigration Service employment examination that held in all the states.
In such a stampede, 8 of the candidates died in the Abuja Stadium. Another four died in Port Harcourt, three died in Minna, while Benin City had one death, a pregnant woman.
No Nigerian can say precisely who was held responsible for those deaths that were needless. We lost 16 young people who committed no offense, but exposed to death by a reckless government of their country. It might interest you to know that the minister in charge of the Immigration during this calamity later became a senator to the present. The Comptroller General of Immigration didn’t resign and was not punished.
So why didn’t Nasarawa State government learn from the fatal error of just last month and 10 years ago,but rather allowed this disaster to repeat?
In countries where rules apply or leaders are accountable to the people, the governor of Nasarawa State and the Vice Chancellor of that university should have tendered their resignations.
It was as unpardonable as it was unreasonable to expose those students to death and harm over some morsels of food. Such a degrading treatment to citizens of Nigeria should not go unqueried.
APOLOGY: The use of the photo of the reported victims is regretted. Readers and viewers may apply their discretion to view them
