A human rights lawyer, and an activist, Mr Femi Falana, SAN, has demanded that the Nigeria Customs Service ought to compensate the households of seven individuals who died in a stampede that ensued through the sale of low-cost rice on the Customs workplace in Lagos.
DAILYPOST remembers that the Nigeria Customs introduced the sale of 25kg baggage of rice for N10,000, following a directive by President Bola Tinubu.
Nonetheless, through the gross sales, which started on February 23, seven individuals died in a stampede on the Customs Zonal Headquarters in Yaba, Lagos State.
The tragic incident led to the fast suspension of the train.
However, in an announcement by Falana, he stated it was unhappy that up until now the authorities of Customs had not deemed it match to establish the households of the victims to at the least commiserate with them, including that the NCS should take full accountability for the incident.
“Since a bag of rice was promoting for N77,000 on the materials time, it must have occurred to the Nigeria Customs Service that its zonal headquarters in Yaba wouldn’t be capable of comprise the group that had been invited to buy a 25kg bag of rice at N10,000.
“Subsequently, the authorities of the Nigeria Customs Service ought to take pressing steps to establish the bereaved households of the seven deceased residents with a view to paying them enough financial compensation.
“Nonetheless, if our recommendation is ignored by the authorities, we will not hesitate to method the Federal Excessive Court docket to implement the elemental proper of every of the deceased individuals to life as assured by Part 33 of the Nigerian Structure and Article 4 of the African Constitution on Human and Peoples Rights,” Falana stated.
He nevertheless, urged the NCS to raise the suspension of the sale of the remaining baggage of rice with none additional delay, saying that to keep away from one other stampede, the distribution must be carried out by way of the suitable native authorities councils and native authorities growth areas in Lagos and different states of the federation.
