Polo Club Stampede: Residents Mourn Victims

The city of Port Harcourt is still in a mourning mood after last week’s stampede at Polo Club which claimed over 30 lives.
The sad incident was as a result of a charity and free gift items event organised by Kings Assembly, a church in Port Harcourt.
The Tide Metro learnt that this is not the first time the church was organising the event, but this year’s attracted huge crowd that was beyond the control of the event planners.
The Tide Metro learnt that figures of deaths may have risen within the week, as more victims die after hospitalisation.
Already, the state government has issued a statement commiserating with families and those who lost their loved ones at the incident.
A young father who gave his name as Ikem Orji narrated how he lost his son to stampede on that fateful day.
“All of a sudden, people started coming more and more. They had to open the smaller gate. People started forcing themselves in through the small gate.
“As they were forcing themselves in, they immediately opened the big gate. People were entering in through the big gate, some were falling down. Those people that fell down, others were stepping on them,” he said.
Although he was able to rescue his daughter with his wife carrying the smaller daughter, his son was however not so fortunate.
He added, “I managed to rescue my first and second daughter. Only my son I couldn’t rescue because there was no way.
“The stampede was too much. I even broke my hand. I can’t raise my shoulder up because they matched me, I collapsed in short. I didn’t even know where I was.”
Orji also asked the police authorities to step up their investigations into the death of Delight to allow him claim the corpse of his son for burial.
Meanwhile, some residents who spoke to The Tide Metro had blamed hunger as major cause of the stampede.
Oribim Ibama said hunger and poverty may have led some people to risk their lives.
She also blamed poor security and lack of good crowd control.
For Theresa Ebizimo, greed may be responsible, as she narrated how her mum left the scene of the incident before the stampede occurred.
She disclosed that her mum left the house very early, but was lucky when she sensed that danger was ahead with the huge crowd that came for the free gift items.
In the same light, Ngozi Amadi narrated that her cousin narrowly escaped being trampled upon by the crowd.
She stated that her cousin, who went to pick the free gift items on reaching the entrance had to leave when pushing and dragging began in the frenzy to get into the Polo field.
It was gathered that immediately the gate of the event centre fell down, people started trampling on one another to push through, it was in the process that many died.