Human rights activist and Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Femi Falana, has tasked the Nigeria Customs Service to compensate the families of the seven people who died in a stampede that ensued during the sale of low-cost rice at the Customs office in Lagos.
News About Nigeria recalls that Nigeria Customs had commenced the sale of 25kg bags of rice for N10,000, in line with the directive by President Bola Tinubu that rice seized from smugglers be sold to Nigerians at a cheaper price to ease the food crisis in the country.
However, during the sale that started on February 23, seven persons died in a stampede at the Customs Zonal Headquarters in Yaba, Lagos State.
Because of the tragedy, the NCS had to suspend the sale of the low-cost rice sale.
Reacting to the tragic incident in a statement on Sunday, Falana, decried the fact that the NCS has failed to identify the families of the deceased for proper compensation.
While noting that the NCS must take full responsibility for the incident, Falana threatened that if they fail to do so, he would take the matter to the Federal High Court.
The statement partly reads, “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.”
Speaking further, he charged the NCS to complete the distribution of the rice as citizens need it.
Falana also advised that to avoid a repetition of the tragedy, 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.
