Stampede Investigation Panel Begins Sitting

This Day

15 February 2011

Stampede Investigation Panel Begins Sitting

No fewer than seven persons Monday testified at the inaugural sitting of Mohammed Abubakar-led six-man panel directed by the president to find out the immediate and remote causes of the Port Harcourt stampede, establish the causes of the death and the number of people that either died or were injured.

In Akure, Governor Olusegun Mimiko of Ondo State Monday called on the Police to organise more trainings for its personnel in the act of crowd control.

The Panel Chairman who is also the Assistant Inspector-General of Police, Zone 6, Calabar, however, assured that nobody would be harmed or arrested at the open sitting. However, a resident of Port Harcourt, Mr. Samuel Chinda, who also testified, said most people were scared of coming to testify because of the involvement of policemen, wrongly presuming that they could be harmed or arrested.

Chinda told the panel that gunshots at the stadium's gate, from some unknown security personnel, worsened the confusion leading to more casualties.

A traditional ruler, King Darlington Nwankwo, the Ezeudo of Agboruland in Rivers State told the panel at the sitting that the soldiers and security personnel who came from Abuja, should be held responsible for the stampede. He called on Rivers and Federal Governments to rebuild the stadium and make available more exit gates, to prevent further deaths in the future. The monarch said announcement by one of the Masters of Ceremonies, Julius Agwu, that policemen not from MOPOL 24 and those with long guns should leave the state box and the main arena, caused more confusion...