Anambra stampede: Group drags Obi to rights commission

From DENNIS MERNYI, Abuja
Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has described the recent death of worshipers in a church in Anambra State during a stampede as a grave dereliction of duty on the part of the state government.
Consequently, the group filed a petition at the Nigeria’s Human Rights Commission, urging its Executive Secretary, Prof. Bem Agwe, to thoroughly investigate the remote and immediate circumstances surrounding the stampede in Uke, in which about 28 persons died.
In a statement made available to journalists and endorsed jointly by its National Coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko and the National Director of Media, Miss. Zainab Yusuf, the group stated it amounted to grave dereliction of duty on the part of the state governor and the House of Assembly to have failed in the last eight years to establish the Anambra State Emergency Management Agency.
Besides, HURIWA decried what it described as the senseless and insensitive dancing on the graves of the departed worshipers by Anambra politicians and urged the governor to publicly apologize to the people of the state for his administration’s alleged failure to institutionally set up a workable agency for emergency and accident rescue missions, which according to it, would have reduced and or eliminated the high casualties recorded during the unfortunate stampede.
To safeguard the people of the state from witnessing similar avoidable human disaster, the rights group said it was imperative for the governor to set up  a structure and work out transparent mechanism for the payment of compensation to relatives of all the 28 victims.
It expressed lack of confidence in the neutrality of the state government setting up a probe panel and urged the National Human Rights Commission to conduct an independent and comprehensive probe of the entire circumstances surrounding the stampede.
It condemned the poor emergency rescue mechanism in place in Anambra State and advocated the creation of a vibrant and well funded state emergency management agency patterned after the National Emergency Management Agency of Nigeria.