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Legal practitioner and former Labour Party (LP) chieftain, Kenneth Okonkwo, has blamed the recent tragic stampedes during food distribution events in Nigeria on widespread desperation and hunger.
The incidents, which occurred in Oyo State, Anambra State and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), left several people dead and many others injured, sparking nationwide grief and debate over the root causes.
The stampedes reportedly took place at events organized to distribute food items to vulnerable Nigerians as part of humanitarian efforts during the festive season.
Okonkwo while speaking on Channels TV said, “This president shifted all the responsibility to the organizers, people who wanted to help people who are hungry. Let me tell you: this stampede happened in the east. It happened in the west. It happened in the north. That means it’s now a general thing that Nigerians from all sectors are hungry and things are hard.
“They did not die in stampedes because they were poor. Poverty exists in every country. They died in a stampede because they were desperately hungry. In other words, they know that if they don’t have that food, they don’t even have anything to fall back in their house, and that is why they had to struggle for N5,000 and grains of rice. The worth of life in Tinubu’s government is now about N5,000 and about [some] grains of rice.”
Days after the stampedes, Tinubu in a media chat, rated his government well in the country’s governance. He defended his administration’s policies including the removal of fuel subsidy, insisting they were necessary steps to getting Nigeria working.
Okonkwo, however, faulted Tinubu’s claims about his government, saying the president cannot rate himself.
“The worst statement the president made during his first Presidential Media Chat is scoring himself ‘excellent’,” the legal practitioner said, claiming Tinubu has done the “worst job by any president since independence.”
