Tag: blood pressure

NOBODY had any premonition of a disaster lurking around on a day which happened to be the second Sunday of the year. As usual on a typical Sunday in Ado Ekiti, human and vehicular traffic was light and business at the main market nearby at a low ebb.

Many of the residents, who had attended church services earlier in the day, had retired to their homes preparing for the hard work awaiting them in the new week. The story of another tragedy was not a music to their ears.

Having survived the vicissitudes of the previous year-2016-fire tragedy was the least on their minds but how wrong they were. Around 4.40 pm on that day, Armageddon descended on Ijigbo area of Ado Ekiti, one of the main business districts of the town where a filling station owned by Strive Energy Limited, was gutted by fire.

Business centres affected include a cold room, boutiques, pharmacy, other business offices and vehicles along Ijigbo area of the city. Residents heard a loud bang which was followed by a huge flame as a tanker, which brought a consignment of petrol to the station was discharging its content. Attendants, customers and some passersby fled in different directions.

The ball of fire caught up with at least three pumps in the station before it extended to other buildings on both sides of the road. The fire was raging, they were helpless and in few minutes, thick, black smoke billowed into the sky. By the time the smoke cleared, the petrol station and about 24 shops were razed down by fire which raged for over two hours.

An eyewitness disclosed that fire broke after a tanker that had arrived the filling station to discharge fuel and the content spilled flowed through the gutter in the area, which made fire to extend to other places.

Another eyewitness claimed that the smoke emitted from the tanker for almost 20 minutes but the whole place reportedly caught fire when a driver who was queuing for fuel suddenly switched on the engine of his vehicle. Most of the shops were firmly locked as it was on a Sunday with all the goods inside them consumed by the inferno, which also affected electric cables in the area.

Vehicles belonging to the Police and National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) were used to block the dual carriage way to prevent moving vehicles from catching fire.

The blockade of the highway caused a traffic snarl which extended from Old Garage, Ijigbo to Ajilosun, Ikere Road.

Hoodlums cashed in on the fire outbreak to loot many shops while pretending to help in salvaging the goods from being burnt. The looting spree was stopped by armed riot policemen deployed in the scene.

Many of the shop owners visited the area on Monday to find their business centres in ruins. They wept uncontrollably as their ware had gone up in flames leaving them empty, hollow and inconsolable.

A victim, who simply identified himself as Mr. Oguntuase, said he lost his building located on Mugbagba Street in Ijigbo, urging Fayose to come to the aid of those whose property were razed. He disclosed that he was shocked to learn of the fire when he was called on the phone rushing to the scene only to find his house from which he derives income reduced to ashes.

Oguntuase said: “I lost my house on 21, Ejigbo Street, by Mogbagba junction to the inferno. There are four rooms and four shops in the house. I thank God that the people around were able to rescue my children who were in the house when the fire broke out.

“My wife and I were not at home. But I rushed back home when I was called that our house was on fire. We lost all our property in the house and the walls of the building collapsed during the inferno. I want to appeal to our government at all levels.

“The good Lord will bless them as they make up their minds to assist us to cushion the effect of the consequence of this tragic development. We just need the government to be compassionate with us.

“There are some of my tenants who rented the now razed shops, they had been sick and bedridden before the tragic incident occurred. There is a man whose ware in one of the shops were all burnt. That has been the family’s only means of livelihood. We have to urge the wife not to tell the man about the tragedy on his shop yet because the man was already down with high temperature and would not be strong enough to receive such bad news.

“I just want to urge the governor, Mr Ayodele Fayose, to show some level of human feeling by reaching out to us. He should not see us as wretched people who he can ignore because God is always on the side of the downtrodden.

“Our governor had shown that he is a very humane governor. He directed that the government house fire service vehicles be brought to contain the fire and he was up and doing during the process of putting out the fire. That is a very compassionate man. He has no relatives among those who fell victim of this disaster but he had come to identify with us and help us that day because he realised that God made him our leader so he can help us.

“The same God will take care of him and family. We appreciate his effort and appeal to him to kindly see to how he can help us in any little way.”

Ayodele Omotoso, a barber whose father’s house, a two-room apartment with a shop, was razed by the fire in Ijigbo, said: “The whole thing we have in the house and the shop was razed because none of us was around. It was on a Sunday and we had all gone to the church. We lost some property worth N1.9 million.”

Mr. Shadrach Obi , who is from Anambra State but has been living in Ado Ekiti for over 30 years, revealed that all the goods he purchased and stocked inside his shop were bought with his savings when he travelled home during the last Christmas for a burial in his village.

He disclosed that not less than 15 Igbo traders were affected by the inferno, revealing that many of them are down with hypertension. Obi also disclosed that he lost goods worth N2.9 million.

Obi said: “Before I travelled to the East for the burial of a relative, I used all the money I had to buy goods into the shop because one could not save such money in the bank at that festive period. We have lost N2.9 million of goods which were drinks, provisions and clothing materials, among others. We lost our big deep freezer, generating set and many others. I was not in Ado Ekiti when the tragedy struck.

“I was called while I was at the village and my family is still at home. I can tell you that with the level of the damage the fire has caused, some people may lose their lives as they have all lost what they have and what they worth.

“This is while I want to appeal to government at all levels to kindly and promptly come to our aide. Do something that one can at least hang on with for some time. We appreciate what governor Fayose has done. He was with the victims to assist us. I saw the pictures on face book and the papers. No governor has ever done that. It shows how compassionate he is. Those of us who are Ibo traders who fell victim to this fire incident are more than 15 and we have lost over N25 million to the inferno.”

Sunday Fagunwa, who sells clocks and wristwatches, said he lost about N5 million worth of goods in his shop. He alleged that the petrol station gutted by fire did not have fire extinguisher.

He said: “We believed the fire incident was aggravated because the filling station did not have fire extinguisher. Immediately the tanker burst into flame, all of them just ran away from the station and left the fuel to ooze out of the tanker which took the fire to all the shops, offices and house it razed.”

Another shop owner, Mrs. Folashade Oguntuase, who is selling some provisions in her shop, said she lost N150,000 worth of her ware to the fire.

She said: “The money which I lost to the fire was borrowed and I don’t have any other means of refunding it. I appeal to the government to please assist me as the was my only means of livelihood.”

Mr. Francis Ezenwaka regretted that he lost N15million worth of goods in two shops he owned in the area saying he does not know where to begin again having been rendered “economically naked” by the incident.

His words: “I am an Igbo man born in Ondo and based in Ekiti. I have two shops, one in which I am selling mattresses, carpets, curtains and rugs. The other where I’m selling roofing sheets on Akure Road. All the two shops have been razed by the fire. I lost over N15 million worth of goods in the two shops. We found out that the man didn’t have fire extingusher in the office; that was why the fire was that much.

“When the fire broke out, the staff just ran away leaving the nozzle from the pump to continue spilling fuel to all the places; it razed shops, offices and houses. It is a pity that we have been left naked economically because all my investment is gone now.”