The Customs rice stampede

TRAGEDY struck in Lagos recently as seven people were killed while struggling to buy the confiscated rice being sold at a give-away price of N10,000 per bag by the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) to the public in response to the harsh economic conditions in which Nigerians are trapped. Hundreds of people tried to force themselves into the venue to buy the rice at the Customs Zonal Office at Harvey Road, Yaba, Lagos, with catastrophic results. Prior to the dastardly incident, the NCS had told Nigerians that it had concluded plans to commence the direct distribution of seized food items to Nigerians following the nationwide protests by Nigerians afflicted by hunger and inflation. According to the National Public Relations Officer of the service, Abdullahi Maiwada, the move was in response to the critical challenges of food security and the soaring cost of essential food items in the country. Maiwada added that the food items had to be certified fit for consumption before they could be distributed to Nigerians. The stampede was however said to have occurred due to poor crowd management by the agency.

This is indeed highly unfortunate. The fact that Nigerians plagued by hunger died while struggling to obtain foodstuff offered by an agency of the state is distressing, but it is even more disturbing that the lessons of past events of similar nature in which people died needless deaths were not put to use in this case. The utter dereliction of duty inherent in the case makes the entire episode one dark reality. To be sure, while the decision by the NCS leadership to auction off rice seized from smugglers to starving Nigerians is not a bad one, proper arrangements should have been put in place given the tension in the land and the desperation by millions of Nigerians to lay their hands on foodstuff. One way to have done that was to have specified the number of Nigerians expected at the Customs office per day, and cordoned off the area once this expected number was realised. That would have shown to the whole world that while trying to lift the mood of Nigerians in these desperate times, the NCS was not going to allow anything that could jeopardise their safety.

The Customs management bears responsibility for the avoidable deaths during the Lagos stampede. It ought to have put in place necessary structures to prevent a stampede knowing that there is massive hunger in the land and realising that many would naturally want to take advantage of the supply of rice at a substantial lower price by the Service. A bag of rice costs no less than N90,000 at the moment, and it is natural for people to invade any space where it is sold for N10,000, even if such a space is a military facility. This is an era in which a staple food like gari, which Nigerians hitherto could afford regardless of their economic circumstances, is being sold in measures that were hitherto associated only with granulated sugar sold to the poorest of Nigerians. Gari is being sold in spoonfuls! The situation is that bad. People are desperate and hungry and so there would naturally be a stampede unless conscious, systematic efforts were made to avoid it. That this was not done even when the agency concerned has the instruments of deterrence and repression speaks volumes about the accustomed carelessness and irresponsibility that characterise official events in this clime.

Beyond this, and more profoundly, the tragic incident also speaks to the failure of the government in arresting the widespread, unprecedented hardship in the land. If anything, the government ought to be ashamed that the situation in the country has degenerated to such a level that people have to literally scramble for food like scavengers. It is a shame that Nigerians are not only dying of hunger but are also dying while scrambling to have a share of any available food. There is no way the sale of limited rice or other food items and/or distribution of paltry amounts of money to some individuals would help to provide succour in the atmosphere of general and massive scarcity and inadequacy of food items. We expect the government and its agencies to address the current situation of hunger more frontally and urgently and not allow the death spiral to continue. In this particular instance, the Customs management should get in touch with the families of victims in order to provide support for them. That is the minimum to expect after not being able to prevent the deaths.

The entire atmosphere of Nigerians having to scrounge for food items is not just disturbing, it should sensitise the government to the level of desperation and hunger in the land. The situation certainly calls for more than the tokenism of palliative measures that has been the response from governments at various levels for some time now.