Nasarawa state governor Abdullahi Sule has denied that the stampede that killed two students during a palliative distribution at the state university was caused by official negligence.
Sule stated this on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics while reacting to allegations by renowned lawyer Femi Falana who blamed state government officials and university management for the disaster.
The governor had ordered the distribution of two 7.5 kg bags of rice and N5,000 to each student of the university. However, two students — Grace Danladi and Rose Micheal were killed when the occasion turned catastrophic as a result of crowd management failure.
The Explainer reported that Falana subsequently said the distribution exercise was not well-organised, and demanded compensation for the families of the victims.
However, Sule said, “It’s very unfortunate that it happened but it had nothing to do with any planning, it has nothing to do with any negligence. We have been to eight places. It was the last place, which would have been the ninth institution that we went to. So, all these other places that we went, everything went so smoothly.”
“We are very sad that two students died. We are talking with the families. So, for somebody to politicise it? It’s unfortunate that we are in a country where everybody looks at a tragedy and politicises it.
“During the process, they (students)overpowered the security and God was so kind, the security did not open fire on anybody. So, it’s not like anybody was shot.
“It was during the stampede that happened, maybe, these two students fell and other students marched on them. So, who are you going to look for compensation from? The students or the management of the university.”
The governor said his deputy and commissioners had paid condolence visits to the families of the two deceased students.
“We are going to support the family with some form of assistance but I am not going to use the word ‘compensation’ because it’s not something that happened on the part of negligence by the government,” Sule stated.
