The mother of Prophetess Naomi Ogunseyi, the ex-wife of Ooni of Ife, has cried out to Nigerians to help her daughter who is currently facing charges over the death of 35 children at a funfair she had in Ibadan, Oyo state last week.
Recall that a Chief Magistrate Court in Iyaganku, Ibadan, on Tuesday , December 24, ordered the remand of Naomi and two others in connection with the stampede at Bashorun Islamic High School.
Naomi sponsored a children fun fair in Ibadan that sadly ended in a stampede leaving 35 children de@d.
In a video shared on social media this evening, the distraught mother of Prophetess Naomi appealed to Nigerians to come to her daughter’s aide.
‘’Please help me! It was good my daughter went to Ibadan to do. It is not today that she has been conducting such programmes. She has been doing it for over ten years now. She goes about doing good to children, the elderly and even pregnant women. I empathize with you all that lost your children.
Please people come to my aid! Do not allow them throw Naomi into the prison. Please have mercy on me! Please help to make them free Noami my child. She came to do good. She is very innocent! Very innocent! Please help me! Please help me free my child. She does not know anything!”
She said that the stampede took place at about 6.30am, hours before the funfair was to start. She said Naomi and the other defendants were to court ‘secretly’ and that one of the counts against her is murder.
‘’My child is not a killer. She was only trying to help.”
Governor Makinde of OYO State reacts to Ibadan Funfair stampede tragedy
‘No life is bigger than the other’-
Anyone found guilty would not be freed:
Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo state has regardless of his closeness with the organisers, justice must be served in the de@th of the 35 children that d!ed during the stampede that occurred at a Children’s funfair in Ibadan on December 11, 2024.
The children d!ed in a stampede at a Christmas charity programme sponsored by Prophetess Naomi Ogunseyi, ex-wife of Ooni of Ife, that held at the Islamic High School venue of the funfair at Bashorun in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital. An Ibadan-based broadcaster and philanthropist, Oriyomi Hamzat, also partnered in the funfair.
Both Prophetess Naomi, Hamzat, alongside the principal of the school, have been remanded in Prison custody over the incident.
Reacting to the development, Governor Makinde said;
“Quite unfortunate, some innocent lives were lost, some of them future investors; future president or governors may be among them. And I listened to people saying Governor knows Oriyomi (Hamzat) and nothing will happen to them and I said to myself they probably don’t know who their governor is, because I’ve got so much pleadings to temper justice with mercy. But we’ll get to that point. If my own children were part of those that died, I would be saying something totally different and no life is bigger than any other life.”
Makinde cited a time when a life insurance policy was proposed and that it designated his life as more important than that of his car driver.
“The life of my driver, is it inferior to my own life for him to deserve regular policy and I a premium policy – when it is life and death? I did not approve the proposal, rather, I said if it’s the regular that everyone deserved, let it be for everyone. When it comes to life and even before God, we’re equal.
It’s easier for people to say these are the people that you know, but what about the 35 persons that d!ed? Don’t they also deserve some justice?”
Makinde, however, added that anyone found guilty would not be freed, and the innocent would not be condemned under his watch
