By Sunday Ani
Five persons, four women and a man, were stampeded to death earlier today as residents of Alahu Osumba, Amuwo Odofin Local Government Area of Lagos State and its environs scrambled for food stuffs packed in a warehouse along Alahu Osumba Road.
All roads led to the warehouse as news filtered around 8am that some angry protesters had broken into the warehouse where COVID-19 food palliatives running into hundreds of bags and cartons were stocked.
Hundreds of residents from Agboju, Alakija, Maza-Maza, Mile 2, Comfort Oboh, Kirikiri areas and the surrounding settlements trooped into the warehouse scrambling over such food stuffs as rice, garri, noodles, spaghetti as well as sugar.
A witness told Daily Sun that the victims died when they were overpowered by the surging crowd who marched over them.
Investigation revealed that the warehouse belongs to the son of one of the major transporters in Nigeria, who bought the COVID-19 food palliatives from government officials at a give-away price and stocked them, waiting for the auspicious time to sell them off.
Unfortunately, residents who knew about the storage, cashing in on #ENDSARS protest, broke into the warehouse and carted away all the food items.
Investigation revealed that when soldiers stormed the place in their hillux van, they only shot into the air to momentarily scare the crowd away while they loaded their van with bags of rice, garri and cartons of indomie. The soldiers were reported to have left the crowd to continue the looting after they have had their fill.
When our reporter got to the place, it was a case of different stroke for different folks. While some people had more than they needed and were even selling to willing buyers at reduced prices, others wore long faces as they could not get much. Some people got as many as 10 bags of garri and 12 bags of rice, while others got a few sachets of indomie.
The people were livid with anger such that after they emptied the warehouse, they started removing part of the wall zinc and the wooden palate used to stock the food items.
However, Daily Sun also gathered that the protesters attempted to break into the Kirikiri Prisons but they were repelled by soldiers who promptly responded to distress call. As at the time of filing this report, gunshots were still rending the air around the prisons to scare away the protesters who may want to regroup.
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