Mr. Femi Falana (SAN), a human rights attorney and activist, has asked that the Nigeria Customs Service provide restitution to the families of the seven people who lost their lives in a stampede that broke out during the sale of inexpensive rice at the Lagos Customs office.
In response to President Bola Tinubu’s direction that rice confiscated from smugglers be sold to Nigerians at a lower price to relieve the country’s food crisis, Nigeria Customs announced the sale of 25kg bags of rice for N10,000.
Seven people lost their lives in a stampede at the Customs Zonal Headquarters in Yaba, Lagos State, during the sale, which took place on February 23.
The low-cost rice sale was immediately suspended in response to the unfortunate tragedy.
In a statement released on Sunday, Falana said it was unfortunate that the NCS authorities had not yet seen it appropriate to identify the victims’ relatives in order to offer them some words of consolation.
According to the SAN, the NCS needs to accept total responsibility for the occurrence.
“Since a bag of rice was selling for N77,000 at the material time, it ought to have occurred to the Nigeria Customs Service that its zonal headquarters in Yaba would not be able to contain the crowd that had been invited to purchase a 25kg bag of rice at N10,000.
“Therefore, the authorities of the Nigeria Customs Service should take urgent steps to identify the bereaved families of the seven deceased citizens with a view to paying them adequate monetary compensation.
“However, if our advice is ignored by the authorities, we shall not hesitate to approach the Federal High Court to enforce the fundamental right of each of the deceased persons to life as guaranteed by Section 33 of the Nigerian Constitution and Article 4 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights,” Falana said.
The senior advocate and activist, further urged NCS to lift the suspension of the sale of the remaining bags of rice without any further delay.
“To avoid another stampede, the distribution should be carried out through the appropriate local government councils and local government development areas in Lagos State and other states of the federation,” he said
, a human rights attorney and activist, has asked that the Nigeria Customs Service provide restitution to the families of the seven people who lost their lives in a stampede that broke out during the sale of inexpensive rice at the Lagos Customs office.){kind=link}