Group condemns Ilorin Sallah stampede

More than 20 people died struggling to collect gifts from a former governor

A nongovernmental organization, Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre, CISLAC, has condemned the Sallah day stampede in Ilorin. Kwara state, which left more than 20 people dead.

The group made its position public in a release signed by its Executive Director, Ibrahim Musa, and made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Ilorin.

More than 20 women died during a stampede in Ilorin on Wednesday during the struggle for gifts presented by a former governor of the state, Bukola Saraki.

The deaths this year were not the first as nearly 50 have so far died in similar Sallah gift stampedes since 2010.

Mr Musa urged the state government to put in a place a policy that would enable women and youths to access credit facilities and reduce poverty that had often forced them into taking unnecessary risks.

“CISLAC recommends that both Kwara State Assembly and the executive immediately increase resources that would benefit women and other vulnerable groups in the state,” Musa said.

He said women and other vulnerable groups in the state had been marginalised over the years with regards to developmental projects.

Mr Musa said the extreme poverty level in the state had deprived women and youths of their constitutional rights.

The fight against poverty in the state, he said, would not succeed if immediate attention was not given to women and youth empowerment.

He added that vulnerable groups in the state had suffered from long years of successive weak governance, rising poverty, ignorance, discrimination, injustice and insecurity.

Mr Musa urged the state government to put in place an institutional framework to promote environmental sustainability and poverty alleviation, particularly among women.

He further charged government to increase funding and investment in small-scale agricultural development projects to promote food security in the state.

(NAN)