Saturday is usually not a busy day because workers and students are off the road. But that wasn’t the case on March 15, 2014; a Saturday, which many Nigerians will not forget in a hurry. It was a date the Nigeria Immigration Service fixed for the conduct of examination for over three million Nigerian job seekers. To those who had the unenviable task of being at any of the stadia where the exercise was to be held or even passing through the roads leading to the various venues of the NIS job exams, it was an experience none of them would pray to encounter again.
In Rivers State, job seekers numbering up to 35,000 streamed to the Liberation Stadium in Elekahia. It would be difficult for anybody to contemplate that all was well after sighting the huge crowd at the stadium. At a time, applicants outside the mainbowl outnumbered their counterparts inside the stadium. The scene was only an accident waiting to happen.
At about 11am, the worst happened as a stampede in the stadium led to the death of five job seekers. One of the victims, Sunday Okezie, who was a graduate of Microbiology from Ebonyi State University, met his death while seeking to gain employment and help to improve his family’s living standard. Okezie never had the premonition that his life would be at stake while searching for an Immigration job. The deceased from Abia State was among the five persons trampled upon during the rush for space at the stadium.
His brother, Kalu, told Saturday PUNCH that his mother collapsed when she received the news. Explaining that he had earlier received an anonymous call that his brother was in a critical condition at the Braithwaite Memorial Hospital, Kalu said he was dumbfounded when he saw the lifeless body of his brother in an ambulance.
Kalu, who was at the hospital with his sister and another brother, said they were at BMH (Braithwaite Memorial Hospital) to meet the Medical Director, even as he expressed sadness over Sunday’s sudden death. He disclosed the mother was still in a shock after hearing the news of her son’s death.
“On Saturday morning, he (Sunday Okezie) told me that he was going for Immigration interview and test. Unfortunately, I got a phone call later that I should come to BMH in Port Harcourt. So, when I got there, I saw my brother’s corpse and other corpses lying inside an ambulance. I went back to buy a recharge card to make calls and before I came back, they had taken him to the mortuary. I then came today to ask them if they confirmed him dead before taking him to the mortuary. That is why I am here.
“One of the people that took his remains to BMH checked his phone and saw a number, which he stored as ‘My Brother.’ They used that to call me to come to BMH. The caller told me that my brother was in a critical condition. So, before I got here, he was already lying flat inside the ambulance with other corpses. I heard that there was a stampede in the stadium. They must have trampled on him during the stampede. My brother was a graduate of MicroBiology at the Ebonyi State University. He went there with his entire original documents.
“According to the advert, they (applicants) were told that they should come with their original documents (credentials). My brother initially went there with photocopies of his credentials, but he later went back to the house and picked the original credentials before running back to the stadium. But as I speak with you now, we can’t even find the certificates. We have only recovered his two phones.
“My mother (Mrs. Justina Okezie) is in the hospital now. She is 67 years. When they told her about her son’s death, she collapsed. Right now, she has started saying ‘where am I?’ She did not even know when she was rushed to the hospital. We used to be three; two boys and one girl. With his death, we are just two,” Kalu told Saturday PUNCH.
On what his family would be expecting as compensation from the Federal Government, grief-stricken Kalu said they were not looking for any monetary compensation, but for government to do the right thing to prevent a recurrence of the ugly incident. He expressed the need for Immigration authorities to handle the recruitment of workers without much ado, adding that inviting 35,000 job seekers to a 16,000 capacity stadium was wrong. He also decried the absence of security at the venue of the exercise in Rivers State, maintaining that hoodlums could have taken advantage of that to cause mayhem.
“We are not looking forward to any monetary compensation. If only the government can put things in order to prevent a recurrence. I know that this is not the first time it is happening; it is not the second time. No amount of money paid by government will cover our brother’s death. We do not know the next home it can happen to. So, the important thing is for the Immigration people to manage their recruitment well. They have shown that they are too careless, especially the comptroller. Had it been he put everything in order, this would not have happened.
“Inviting over 35,000 people to a stadium of 16,000 capacity shows that there is no how such thing (stampede) will not happen. There was no security there. They did not even assume that maybe bad boys could come to the place. They ought to have known that ordinary knockout (fireworks) could cause stampede with the huge crowd in the stadium. I feel so bad about this tragedy, but there is nothing I can do since it has already happed.
“I know that something must kill a man, but it must not be in such a cruel manner; because my brother was trampled to death. Had it been he fell sick and we could not get money for his treatment, it would have been understandable. But my brother who left my house healthy could not come back. I am feeling bad about it. But there is nothing I can do,” Kalu further lamented.
He added that the Immigration authorities should have used the N1,000 received from the applicants to ensure that a conducive environment was provided for the job seekers. According to him, the money collected from the applicants must have been misappropriated. Kalu said, “I even heard that they collected N1,000 each from the applicants. I thought the N1,000 was for coordinating the examinations or tests. It appears they just misappropriated the money. They did nothing about safety, knowing full well that in a crowd like that, something untoward must happen. But they did not put any safety measure in place. That was why the exercise recorded many victims.”
Also, a woman, whose name was not immediately provided, was said to be preparing for her wedding on April 9, 2014. Her mother, Mrs. Victoria Armah, disclosed that her daughter had gone shopping in Aba, Abia State on March 14, 2014 in preparation for her wedding. Mrs. Armah said she was shocked when she was told that her daughter was among those that lost their lives in the stadium stampede.
Speaking with Saturday PUNCH, the Public Relations Officer of NIS, Rivers State Command, Mr. Abang Bisong, maintained that contrary to the claim in some quarters, security and medical personnel were on the ground before the incident on Saturday. Bisong added that letters to BMH and other security outfits, requesting them to be at the stadium for the NIS recruitment programme were still with him.
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