Man and his panic prone environment: theoretical and policy considerations

Abstract

The events of recent past, especially the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks of the united states' Trade centre in New York and the pentagon Washington and the bomb blast of the Ikeja Military cantonment on Sunday January 27, 2002 where about a thousand people lost their lives as a result of panic is a sure reminder that panic behavior is still with us. panic is a type of collective behaviour which is the spontaneous, unstructured, transitory behaviour of a group of people reacting to a specific event. that is, a panic occurs when people react in fear an try to escape from a situation perceived as threatening. recently, a panic and mass hysteria occurred when the accident took place at the Ikeja Military Cantonments in Lagos. About a thousand people lost their lives and property worth millions of naira were damaged. This paper argues that the problem of panic behaviour has long been of practical and theoretical significance. It distinguished between panic in unorganized group and panic in organized groups. The paper recommends that the federal, state, and local governments in Nigeria should set up more efficient panic – oriented agencies. The agencies like the National Emergency Relief Agency and the Nigerian Red Cross are already there. It is recommended that the Federal government should adequately fund them to make them more efficient and efficacious.


(Global Journal of Social Sciences: 2003 2 (1): 15-20)