By George Onah, Port Harcourt
Today, as some Nigerians celebrate love in the spirit of  Valentine’s Day, many Niger Delta people are mourning the loss of their loved ones.

A mammoth crowd at the Liberation Stadium for the rally. Eleven individuals died following a stampede

The journey to death began nine hours into the visit of President Goodluck Jonathan to Port Harcourt. He was on a campaign tour of the South South and the venue was the Liberation Stadium, Elekahia. People started trooping into the stadium as early as 7.30 a.m. They came from Bayelsa, Akwa Ibom, Delta, Cross River and, of course, Rivers states.

The first bad news that greeted the visit was the accident of the convoys of some governors who had gone to the airport to receive Mr. President. Right at the junction of the GRA, along Aba Road, a jeep and a bus rammed into a stationary trailer and three security men and a civilian were killed in that accident.  At the stadium, shortly after the ceremony of handing over the banners to the various gubernatorial flag bearers, then came time for speech-making. The governors of the Niger Delta took their turn to display their oratory.

As President Goodluck Jonathan got to the middle of his speech, a segment of the spectators in the stadium started moving towards the exit gate. They had wanted to beat the crowd that would probably surge for the gate after the President had completed his speech.

They equally wanted to leave the arena before the roads are blocked when Jonathan would leave the stadium. Then suddenly, pushing started at one of the small gates and a woman fell down. People trampled on the woman. So in an apparent move to disperse the crowd and save the woman on the ground, some policemen pulled the trigger of their AK47, releasing several salvos into the air. The shooting caused more commotion and more pushing, resulting in a thorough stampede.

When the size of the frightened spectators thinned down, 10 women and one man lay motionless. They were stone dead. Among the dead was a women leader of the Peoples Democratic Party from Ubima, the home village of Governor Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi.

Another women leader from Port Harcourt also died in the pandemonium. Vanguard Metro also learnt that “a female relation of the Governor” was equally critically injured in the fracas. Some of the dead women were also from Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa and Akwa Ibom states. Another cause of  the stampede was linked to some people who wanted to enter the stadium through the only gate open while others were shoving and struggling to move out of the same gate.

These people were said to be angling to return to the venue to share some of the largesse and entertainment brought by the various contingents and supporters.

There was a second account of another stampede outside the gate, to the effect that a money bag threw some wads of naira notes into the air. As the crowd scrambled for the money, some policemen on horsebacks rode into the crowd, crushing the naira-seekers in the process.

It could not be explained why the horsemen had to ride into the crowd. An eye witness said the policemen wanted to help themselves to the crispy notes, hence the need to chase the “hawks” away. Scores of women and men’s shoes, bags, head ties, caps, handkerchiefs and torn singlets littered the ground after the end of the “naira rain”. This account was confirmed by nine eye witnesses who in themselves were in the naira chase.

When the state Commissioner for Information, Mrs Ibim Seminitari, briefed the press, Sunday, she confirmed the death of the 11 people, saying that the “heart of the state government goes to the families of the dead and that the government would want to hold the hands of the bereaved and mourn with them. She disclosed that the government would pick the bills of the wounded and those of other casualties.

“The government received the news with a sense of loss and pain. We shall not play politics with this incident; we are more saddened by the death of so many women because women always come in their number when called upon and for this to happen to them is really a tragedy”, Seminitari said.

The police spokesperson Dr. Rita Inoma-Abbey (a DSP) had denied, Saturday evening, that there was any death, explaining that “some people only suffocated and fainted but no one died”. When Vanguard Metro contacted her for a fresh angle to the news, Sunday, she could not be reached.  As at press time over 15 people were still on admission at the Braithwaite Memorial Hospital out of the 36 people that were registered for injuries there.

Also, 10 others were admitted at Teme Clinic out of the 40 people that ran to the place for treatment. The number at the Military Hospital could not be ascertained but some people were equally admitted in that hospital. The corpses of the men and women have been deposited at the Braithwaite Memorial Hospital. The state government commended the various agencies that helped in the rescue operation, particularly the state emergency rescue team, Rivers Traffic Management Agency, TIMA RIV and others.