The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management, and Social Development, Nentawe Yilwatda, on Monday, highlighted protocols that event organisers must adhere to when planning future palliative distribution to vulnerable Nigerians, to prevent stampede and death.
The development comes after many persons were killed while struggling to receive palliatives last week in Abuja, Oyo and Anambra States.
Yilwatda, who spoke as a guest at Channels Television’s breakshow, sympathised with the families of the victims, noting that protocols such as registration of the event, involvement of police operatives, risk assessment, and vulnerability checks, among others, needed to be strictly considered.
“First, I want to sympathise with the families and the country for the lives we lost. As a government, we are so depressed by what happened.
“However, despite the empathy, we still have to talk about the safety measures that are supposed to be taken at this moment.
“Mark you, we distribute food more than any organisation, and you would never hear of a stampede.
“We even distribute more than what these people are giving, even in harsher conditions but you won’t hear of any hazard. We go to areas where people are more desperate, IDP centres.
“So what are the protocols involved in such distribution of food? Whenever an event is not properly organized, then, we have these kinds of situations we have right now – stampede and loss of lives. We have challenges of protocol in this country. And these stampedes happen globally, even in countries that are developed.
“You can’t just throw open distribution of palliatives. For instance in Ibadan, they have a population of over 2 million, and you are saying you want 5000 people to come and collect.
“Or in Abuja where you have a population of between 2-3 million, and you say anybody can come and receive- maybe like 2000 people. The ratio is too small and you are going to have. And you know social media doesn’t even help the matter because you put the information there and many people show up.
“However, when you have such a programme, you ask people to come and register, and then you select those that will benefit.
“Then you pick distribution points if there are too many. You mount police officers there.
“You do vulnerability checks and risk assessments- these will prevent the stampede and deaths.”
Yilwatda noted that such protocols needed to be adopted by the government at various levels, religious groups and organisations that have good intentions toward the people.
The minister also advised palliative organisers who do not have the resources to put all the protocols in place to meet with the federal government team for assistance.
“The most important thing is for state governments to domesticate these protocols because they are still at the national level. Even the local governments need to adopt it because events are organised at local and state government levels.
“At the federal government level, we have minimal events we control. So, they need to adopt the federal government protocols. Again, the police have protocols. So, police need to enforce the protocols, such as asking people to register for the events and then penalising those who fail to follow those protocols,” he said.
When asked to list more of the protocols that needed to be put in place, he said: “If we are organising food distribution, we write to the police and inform security agencies.
“We tell them our location and how many people we are expecting. We list our beneficiaries, then we pick venues together with the police.
“We do vulnerability checks and risk assessments of the venue.
“Then we set up a crowd management team.
“Before the crowd start arriving, the protocol team will be there first, so that they check in the people. If we discover that the crowd will be too much, we can postpone the event.”
