NLC condemns death of 30 people at PDP campaign office
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Written by Yekini Jimoh, Ilorin
Tuesday, 31 May 2011

THE Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) said the death of over 30 people in last week’s stampede in Ilorin, at the campaign office of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Kwara State is unacceptable.

The national vice president of NLC, Comrade Issa Aremu, speaking with newsmen in Ilorin, shortly after a birthday prayer session organised for his 85-year-old mother, Hajia Hasfat A. Aremu, urged politicians in the country to devise other ways of investing in the piety of ordinary Nigerians, which according to him “is good governance.”

The victims of the incident were allegedly crushed to death by a collapsing fence while they were scrambling for money and local fabric locally called ankara.

His words: “It will be recalled that similar tragedy took place in November 2010 at the same venue (Mandate House) when as many as 11 people reportedly lost their lives and thousands wounded during a scramble for free rice at an occasion organised by the PDP in the state.

“The above tragedies underscore the level of poverty in Nigeria and Kwara state in particular. It certainly does not portray Nigeria and Kwara state in particular in good light.

“For whatever intention the practice whereby people are gathered for goods to be given to them as though they are beggars must end. If politicians should concentrate on fulfilling their promises of providing good governance, the idea of having to distribute money, cloths and free rice with attendant loss of lives may not even arise because the people will be empowered enough to feed themselves.

“The organisers of the events that led to these avoidable must be prosecuted.”

Also speaking, the pioneer chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), Justice Mustapha Akanbi (rtd), urged President Goodluck Jonathan to resist pressures from political associates who might want him to take actions that are against the interest of the people.