- Federal Government should assuage pains of bomb blast victims 15 years after
It is 15 years since bomb blasts rocked the Ikeja Cantonment of the Nigerian Army in Lagos, leading to the death of about 1,000 persons, five hundred injured and about 12,000 families displaced. In the aftermath, governments at the federal and state levels promised to compensate the victims as well as take actions to remediate the situation and prevent a recurrence. But the gvernment has failed to meet with the responsibility.
The victims who marked the 15th anniversary on January 27 have been recounting the sad experience and how they have largely been ignored by the authorities. While the chairman of the victims, Mr. Nurudeen Oyegbemi, said half of the families duly registered have been compensated by the Lagos State Government, the Federal Government is said to have stopped at making empty promises.
This is unfair. Given the level of physical losses suffered by the families, with some having to relocate, it is unfortunate that the Federal Government that retains about 52 per cent of the national resources failed to play its part. This is even the more painful when it is realised that the military, its funding and control, is on the exclusive legislative list.
As the Commander of Ikeja Garrison, Brigadier-General George Emdin, said then: “On behalf of the military, we are sorry; this is an old ammunition depot with high-calibre bombs … some efforts were being made in the recent past to try to improve the storage facility, but this accident happened before the high authorities could do what was needed.” It was an indication that negligence was largely responsible for the calamity. Yet, the government could not rise to the occasion. It is time governments realised that they exist to cater to the welfare of citizens. The immediate actions taken in providing temporary accommodation and needs of the victims were undertaken by the state government.
The Federal Government’s inability to provide necessary succour despite the promises made in the heat of the moment is similar to agreements willfully breached by the government. This is at the root of industrial disharmony in the country. Teachers, doctors, judiciary and aviation workers, among others, down tools regularly because government has failed to implement signed commitments. This must change if the country is to march forward.
There are suggestions that the government has equally failed to take stock of armouries in the military formations and the storage condition. We call on the Federal Government, in conjunction with the military authorities, to immediately take stock and put in place remedies. There is no reason why such poorly maintained and potentially dangerous facilities should be put in residential environment.
Besides, despite the existence of agencies such as the National Orientation Agency (NOA), the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) and information centres at the state and local government levels, Nigerians remain ill-informed about emergency procedures. Most of those who died and sustained injuries in the 2002 incident did outside the cantonment. They sank in the Isolo canal owing to panic, not knowing what to do. Others, mainly children, were crushed as they attempted to cross the highway at Ikeja by equally frightened motorists attempting to run away from danger even when they did not know the direction the blasts came from. Handling such emergencies and First Aid should be taught at the secondary and tertiary education levels.
The military should learn from that incident, as well as the blasts that still occur occasionally from ill-disposed bombs from the civil war in the South East, to take proper care in locating armouries in the North East where the anti-insurgency war is being fought now to avoid similar havocs in the future. Fifteen years after, it is time to put closure to the sad episode.
