Yesterday, President Bola Tinubu ordered an investigation into the tragic stampede at a children’s funfair in Ibadan, Oyo State.
In response, the police confirmed that “investigations are ongoing.”
Earlier The New Daily Prime reported that police confirmed that the stampede, which occurred at Islamic High School in Orita Bashorun, Ibadan, led to the deaths of 35 minors.
The police also confirmed the arrest of Naomi Silekunola, the former queen of the Ooni of Ife, the event organiser, the principal of the school, and six others.
He added that initial findings suggest poor crowd control may have contributed to the disaster.
Adewale Osefiso, the Oyo State police spokesperson, spoke on Channels Television’s “The Morning Brief” on Friday, stating that investigations are in progress to determine the cause of the tragic event.
His words, “Investigations are in progress, but from the preliminary findings, it was discovered that at some point the fair, they were supposed to go in with a token, at some point the prices were slashed and later, some had the opportunity of going in free. So, at some point, something must have gone wrong as regards some sort of agitation.
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“In this case, when it comes to crowd control anything could have triggered it; it could be excitement, it could be fear, it could be panic and judging by the space, which at the end of the day we discovered that the crowd that got into that place which was not the originally planned number, could have also contributed to the stampede because those going in actually did most of the damage to those already in.”
He mentioned that the number of children who attended the funfair surpassed the expected turnout.
“The projected capacity of the crowd that they expected exceeded, and a stampede ensued. As a matter of fact, the programmed had not even started properly when the when the process started.
“Sadly, we recorded as a Command 35 minors dying and of course 6 being critically injured and presently responding to various medical interventions,” Osefiso said.
