The Abule Egba pipeline fire outbreak which left the entire Awori area of Lagos awake all night on Tuesday, rendered many people homeless.
Recalling her nightmarish incident, an 80-year-old woman, Madam Alice Solomon, said the entire family was fast asleep when all hell was let loose.
She told The Nation
She said: “It was about 3 am when I heard sounds like bomb blasts in front of our compound where I had a provisions store. So frantically, I hurried out to the shop and behold, fire was all over the shop. “The stock of fireworks I had hoped to sell during this Christmas season was the first casualty of the fire outbreak. In fact, the noise from the blasts of the fireworks became our initial saviour.
“I remembered that we were four in the house, including my child and my grandchildren, so I hurried back to wake the others, not minding how poorly dressed we were.
“Suddenly, the shout of fire was all over the place. We were in the middle of the fire and had no way of escaping.
“We thought of escaping through the back of the house but the situation there was worse. That was when I started screaming to the people in the other compound and they told us to climb the fence. So we all scrambled to the fence and climbed. It was the fence that saved us.
“But I sustained bruises on my hand and palms from the pieces of broken bottles installed on the fence. From there, we ran for our dear lives.”
Asked where they have been staying since then, Mrs. Solomon responded:
“We ran to our church, the Celestial Church of Christ.”
Sike Lukmon, one of the victims of the night fire, was a pathetic sight. Although she was heavily pregnant, she had to struggle against death on that night.
. Sike, who was delivered of a baby two days after the incident, said without money and all their property destroyed, she could not afford delivery at a hospital, hence she delivered her baby in the corner of a burnt building where they are now squatting.
According to her, the only way left for them to escape the fire was to jump over the fence.
She said: “
There was noise everywhere and we didn’t even know which direction to run to. There was fire in the other compound, across the road and everywhere. I climbed the fence and fell down three times before I finally succeeded.”
Sike is a petty trader who, according to her, managed to save some money to buy some things in readiness for her expected baby, but everything she bought went with the fire. Her goods too were burnt to ashes.
But she held unto her new baby and gave thanks to God as people came to see the miraculous baby delivered without the aid of a midwife. Women from a nearby church were said to have come to her aid at the point delivering the child.
John Ogha, a 37-year-old man from Benue State, who works with the Federal Ports Authority, said he was at home with his wife and four children when fire invaded their house.
He said: “We heard shouts all over the area. We thought that it was an unusual case of armed robbery. We didn’t know it was fire.
“I saw fire creeping into the corridor of the house and I started shouting to my wife. By that time, we could not pass through the main door anymore. The fire had grown too big and was all over us. We had to desperately break the windows, I jumped out and my wife was passing the children to me through the window one after the other, before she jumped out herself.
“We ran for dear life. All the other tenants struggled to get out one way or the other. None of us in the house took anything with us. Some of us escaped from the fire with only wrappers tied around our body. Some escaped in shorts and boxers while some did not even wear anything.
“There were about eight rooms in the house and all our property all burnt to ashes. In the morning, we all rushed down to check whether we had anything that was saved but there was nothing. We have nowhere to stay now.
“There is a hotel now where the owners pitied us and said I should just pay N5000 per week. I have been moving from one family member to another seeking financial help.”
Emeh Achanga,the CEO of the Miss Petite Nigeria Brand is a lawyer turned blogger. She is very passionate about writing, with several publications and awards to her credit .She is currently working on publishing a collection of short stories which are basically a memoir about her exciting true experiences.
