By Jimoh Sulyman
Thursday is a day to forget for the residents of an ill-fated building at Kilanko area of Ilorin as they lost all their belongings in an inferno that razed their house to the ground.
One of the victims of the fire who spoke National Pilot, AbdulRahman Nurudeen, A Quranic teacher at Darul Sikrah Madrasah at Gaa Akanbi area, recalls how the fire started.
The man in distraught said, “fifteen minutes past 12am in the early hours of Thursday ,my wife woke me up with a loud scream, screaming that the house is on fire, I stood up from the bed and tried all my best to take my children to safety but I watch all by belongings burn to the ground.
“The fire started from one of my neighbour’s room ,Baba Favour, he has on several occasions lost his motorcycles to theft, but recently he bought a new one and decided to be parking it inside his own room to prevent repetition of what had happened to him in the past.
“On that faithful day, he was unaware that his motorcycle is having a fuel leak, so he brought it into his room as usual, but somehow, unfortunately the leaking fuel was ignited while he was trying to use his phone flashlight close to the motorcycle.
“He thought he could put out the fire by himself but he was unable to, that was when he woke the other neighbours up, unfortunately for him he is presently hospitalized after suffering severe burn on his body.
“We were all lucky to escape with our lives, but we lost every single thing in our apartments running into millions of Naira.” Nurudeen lamented.
He added that, “My mattress, furnitures even cash stored in the house were not spared, someone said he brought home more than a hundred thousand Naira in cash, even my wife had more forty thousand Naira ,the money from her thrift collection, everything perished in the flame.
“Apart from our lives ,we couldn’t salvage any of our possessions, but I’m grateful to God, because our lives are more precious than any of our possessions, in fact another person also own a motorcycle, that One was also reduced to ashes.
“The only thing I managed to take out of that house is the singlet and short I was putting on when to bed ,It saddens me greatly because I don’t where to start over my life, it is almost like starting a new life.” the victim stated.
He however appealed to the government and well meaning Nigerians to come to their rescue by providing succor for their losses and assist to bring himself and other victims back on their feet.
