Stampedes are symptoms of Nigerian innumeracy [OPINION]

By Abimbola Adelakun

Within a mere four days, an estimated 70 people were recorded dead from three different instances of stampedes that occurred in Ibadan, Oyo State; Okija, Anambra State; and Abuja. In the case of Ibadan, the organisers had promised to give several gifts to as many as 5,000 children, but so many people turned up that the event went out of their control. Funny, when I heard the chief organiser, Olori Naomi Silekunola, promoting that event and saying they expect as many as 5,000 children, I briefly thought, “There we go again, the Nigerian penchant for stating figures without thinking of their import!”

In Nigeria, we have this habit of seeing figures as little more than zeroes on paper rather than an illuminative source of logical planning. Innumeracy—that is what they call it. While the term has been used for describing quantitatively incompetent individuals, it is hardly ever applied to a culture. But when you think about it, Nigeria variously suffers from this; it shows up when disasters like stampedes occur. Any event that involves 5,000 children will involve at least 2,500 parents if one parent brings two children. To Silekunola who kept announcing the number of expected guests and induced a hunger-driven public to attend her event, the idea of 5,000 children in a confined space probably never struck her as unwieldy. I doubt she can adequately visualise what 5,000 people would truly look like in space. Or she did not think so many people would respond to her invitation?

A statement attributed to Oriyomi Hamzat, one of the organisers of the carnival, stated that when he went to inspect the venue a day before the incident, she met Silekunola there, and “she said the place was more spacious than the place they wanted to use (earlier)”. But by what metrics did either she or Hamzat arrive at the logical conclusion that the place would be sufficient for the number of people they were expecting? Did they measure and calculate the space according to the number of people per square meter or simply use their eyes to judge? Did they factor in the number of exits and entrances necessary for a crowd that huge even if there were no gatecrashers?

Ideally, it should not be an individual event organiser’s job to work out the mathematics. It is the government’s responsibility to provide guidelines for every space where more than 50 people will gather. Every event centre should have safety protocols limiting the number of people who can occupy available space. You should also not be allowed to claim that you have a space that can contain, say 5,000, until you demonstrate the capacity to handle emergencies that can occur because of that many people staying within a confined space.

Not to exonerate the organisers of the event, but what was the Oyo State Government doing when they heard repeated announcements that 5,000 children were being invited to a carnival that would take place within a school compound? Now, they have arrested the event organisers, but are they taking responsibility for their own failures?

Our lack of quantitative sophistication is why we are a society where anyone can get away with anything. There is a reason we build a massive event centre to host large gatherings but forget to add parking spaces commensurate with the number of people we say can occupy the building. Hardly anyone even thinks of an evacuation plan as they design such buildings. God help you if a disaster breaks out.

An innumerate society does not count to plan; they plan and then count later. When they eventually count, they tamper with the figures because they are not looking for the truth; they just want to score some goals. That infidelity with numbers routinely shows up in every aspect of our lives. To date, nobody can definitively state the population of Nigeria. We go by exaggerated estimates. We plan in darkness.

Underlying the drama that followed the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics’ release of figures of kidnapping across the country is still the problem of our inability to count (and account for ourselves) properly. According to the 2024 NBS Crime Experience and Security Perception Report, 2.23 million kidnapping incidents reportedly occurred during the year, with 63.5 per cent of these occurring in the North-West geopolitical zone alone. The report stated that N2.2tn was paid as ransom, an average amount of N2.7m per incident. Not long after the report was published on their website, they rescinded it and claimed their website was hacked. And this is the organisation that is supposed to supply the government figures with the data with which they will plan our lives? I find their lack of institutional integrity more worrisome than their curious figures.

Tinubu and his friend

One of the remarkable moments in the otherwise dull presidential chat that President Bola Tinubu had on Monday was when he referenced his friend. He said, “People are learning management. A friend used to brag to me that he had five Rolls Royce. The other day I saw him in his Honda Accord. He said that’s where you put me. I told him, ‘I did not put you there.’ But he said it was because of fuel prices that he could no longer maintain five limousine-type vehicles. It is not negative to learn to manage. Switch off the light to control your electricity bill. Let us learn to manage.”

Please file this under the list of things that never happened. Tinubu has no such friend. It is easy to tell he cooked up the story. Note that he did not say he actually ever saw the five Rolls Royce but only knew about it because the friend bragged about it. Yet, the same Tinubu who knew of his friend’s stupendous wealth through reported speech somehow saw him in a Honda Accord (and probably driving himself too)! Where and when did he manage to see this friend in a Honda? In Aso Rock or on the streets of Bourdillon?

In any case, stories like this one are not parsed for their truth value. We scrutinise them for what they say about the person telling them. Around this time in 2022, then-President, Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), revealed how a friend had begged him to speak to the FCT Minister, Mohammed Bello, to allocate him a parcel of land to sell so he could use the proceeds to marry another wife. As I said in an article then, the kind of conversations presidents have (or they say they do) with their friends is telling of their character and the quality of the company they keep. If you get a chance to talk to the president, even if he is your friend, you should be asking for a favour of land allocation to build an industry and not your sagged libido.

For Tinubu, whose “friend” is at best imaginary, this supposed conversation is telling of his sadism. If truly he had a friend who was stupendously wealthy enough to have five Rolls Royce and the person now drives a lesser-valued car, he should be seriously worried about that kind of misfortune under his administration. Even if the person were a political opponent, such a fate befalling them should be a loud indication to Tinubu that the country is not prospering. If a person who boasted five Rolls Royce can downgrade so much, that means the person who started with a Honda Accord is now crawling. If you were a humane leader, that would be an epiphanic moment. The revelation should have prompted you to vow to change the course of your nation’s fortunes, not dismiss such a staggering tale of oríburúkú as needful asceticism.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Culled from The Punch