Femi Ashekun/
Many people were feared dead in a stampede at the venue of an open air prayer service in a church located on Ewenla Street, off Ikotun-Idimu Road, Lagos, this morning.
NewsmakersNG learnt that prayer service, which holds on the third Thursday of every month, usually attracts a massive crowd of worshippers.
The service is hosted by Pastor Odekunle Epaphras Prayer Ministries (Olorun Ojiji), also known as Comfort Life Mission International Church.
According to residents of the area, when the church initially started to host the service at the expansive facility, it conducted only one service. It later increased the services to three as attendance grew rapidly.
Eyewitnesses told NewsmakersNG that trouble started after the crowd waiting for the second service scrambled to enter the venue immediately after the first service ended without allowing the first set of worshippers to exit the venue. This reportedly led to a stampede during which several worshippers were seriously injured.
See the video of the first service before the stampede:
They claimed that some of those injured, who were rushed to the hospital unconscious, were later reported dead.
When NewsmakersNG visited the venue, an official of the church, who identified himself simply as Pastor Yemi, confirmed that there was a stampede at the end of today’s service as worshippers were trying to exit the ground.
He said the church had made adequate arrangements for crowd control by creating separate gates for those coming in and those going out but the crowd refused to follow instructions despite repeated appeals.
He, however, declined to confirm the number of those that died, saying they were still awaiting feedback from those that conveyed the injured persons to the hospital.
NewsmakersNG also learned that the founder of the ministry, Pastor Odekunle Epaphras, was initially detained at the Ikotun Police Station but was later released on bail.
The spokesman for the Lagos State police command, SP Benjamin Hundeyin, did not answer repeated calls and has not responded to a message requesting further information about the incident.
0