One week after the death of three siblings roasted to death in a fire that happened at Egbeda, Lagos, the true cause of the death of the three children is still shrouded in mystery, writes HANNAH OJO.
HOW did the three children caught in the fire that happened on Number 18 Fakoya Street, Egbeda-Akowonjo, Lagos on the 13 of June die? Exactly a week after the sad occurrence, the answer to that question lies sketchy as investigations by The Nation reveal that the tale of the fire which claimed the lives of the three siblings namely Ugonma-9, Chukwuemeka-7 and Ufuoma-3 appears to be buried in conspiracy.
When The Nation caught up with the father of the deceased children, Mr. Patrick Ndubisi, a 35-year-old park attendant with an interstate transport company in Oshodi, he discredited the claim that he lit a candle and locked the children inside the house to go visit his wife who was just delivered of a baby.
Ndubisi, who was visibly pained that national dailies could carry the claims of the story without hearing his own side of the matter, said he left home by 8am on the day of the sad occurrence to look for money to discharge his wife, who had delivered a baby boy on Thursday. He didn’t return until night when the deed had already been done.
“I stayed with my children on Friday, gave them food and catered to their needs. I was even happy with the way Ugonma, my eldest daughter, washed the new baby’s cloth and tended to the younger ones. On Saturday morning, I called my eldest daughter, gave her money to buy rice and water. The last child was crying when I was about leaving the house but I told her I had to go and look for money so that I can bring their mother home. I came to work to meet my master to borrow me N15, 000 for my wife’s hospital bills but I was told to wait till Monday. He ordered my colleague to give me N1,000 so that I can use that to get my wife some things”.
Patrick, who disclosed that he used the N1,000 to play lotto with the hope that he would be able to multiple it, had his hopes dashed when other sources he turned to for money didn’t yield any result. He was forced to go and borrow N700 but the malam who owns a store close to the park where he works was only able to give him N500 after he had offered to use his phone as collateral.
“That was around 9: 30 on that Saturday. Since I walked around and didn’t get money, I already bought some soup things for my wife and so I joined a bus. I thought the best thing to do was to get to my wife and tell her that I couldn’t meet up with the money to discharge her from the hospital that day”, he relayed.
According to him, he gave his wife N500 to manage in the morning of the day the sad occurrence happened and was later waiting for a friend to accompany him to see her in the night to inform her that he couldn’t raise the money to discharge her. He claimed he was trekking back from the hospital when he saw fire service men on duty and realised the fire tragedy was happening in his compound.
“I flung the nylon I was holding and was pushing to enter into my compound but people restrained me. By the time I found myself inside, everything had been burnt, including my three children. Nothing remained. I was totally confused over my life”.
He countered the claim that he lit a candle and locked the children in while he went out in the night, saying he left his house around 8am and didn’t return until the time he came to encounter the fire.
“It is only God that can judge. I believe my children must have slept when the fire started because they usually go to sleep before I return from work. But somebody told me that a boy was trying to help them when they were shouting. My landlady’s daughter also said she saw one of my neighbours coming from the backyard before the fire started”, he stated to buttress his point.
Patrick accused some neighbours of complicity in the case. He said on returning to the house on the Wednesday after the fire happened, he discovered that the woman who was seen in the backyard before the fire started, came to pack her things from the building. He promptly went to report her at the divisional police headquarters at Afonka, Shasha where the case is being handled.
Many have wondered why the children could not be rescued by the neighbours since the fire started at night. It was this that prompted The Nation to launch an enquiry into the state of the relationship between the Ndubisis’ and their co-tenants.
Sources around the area of the fire accident revealed that the parents of the deceased children do not have a cordial relationship with their co-tenants. Patrick would later substantiate the claim by saying that it is only two of the neiboubours living in the main flat that he befriends.
“One of my neigbours told me that he bought biscuit for my last daughter to celebrate her birthday on that day. I was not happy with the fact that he was celebrating birthday for my daughter when I was not around since my family and his are not in good terms. I told the police to interrogate him because he has been the person causing all the problems I had been having in that house”, Patrick replied.
The co-tenant, whom he suspected, has since been detained. Patrick also dismissed the suspect’s claim that he didn’t hear the children’s cry for help because he was asleep when the fire started. He also wondered why his landlord’s wife didn’t think to help the children before going to call her daughter who sells things at the other street”.
“My children were very smart and active. I could not have locked them in the house. The question I am now asking God is, how come Ugonma cannot guide her younger ones?” Patrick said tearfully.
Patrick’s relationship with the landlord appears to have been ruined since he had already been issued a quit notice over the inability of Patrick to pay his N2, 000 monthly rent on the one-room apartment.
If, indeed, the fire was caused by a candle flame, who could have lit a candle in the night since Patrick claimed to have left the house since 8am and didn’t return until the fire outbreak? Again, how were the children locked inside since their father said the door had already been damaged?
At the office of the transport company where Patrick sat to narrate his story to The Nation, many of his co-workers blamed newspapers for circulating what they called false reports about the mishap without even hearing from the victim.
“You are the only press person who bothered to find out from the real victim. Other papers have been writing nonsense. We don’t know why they have been framing up this guy even without hearing his own side of the story. Somebody lost three children in a night and somebody is reporting that the mother got mad and killed the new baby, what kind of tale is that?” a visibly angry colleague of the bereaved asked.
Some reports said during the week that Patrick’s new baby died at the hospital because the mother mishandled him when she heard the news about the children. But the Imo State-born grief-stricken father told The Nation that the baby is still alive and his wife had since been relocated to her village in Enugu State.
The charred remains of the children are still in the mortuary and Patrick, who claims to be an orphan, is rambling with how he can patch his life together. “I need Nigerians to help me. I have been hanging around the park and the more people tell me sorry, the more I feel sad because it causes me to remember my children. I cannot stay in Lagos again. I am homeless. My wife is also jobless. I am the only child of my mother and both my parents are late”, Patrick said weeping uncontrollably.
The landlord of the house, Rev. Samuel Oyekola, a septuagenarian, who is a reverend of the African church, told The Nation that it was the pastor of another church who cursed Patrick when they had a disagreement sometimes ago.
“I told him to go and report at the police station, but he didn’t attach seriousness to it. The relationship of the wife and the man is not good. Nothing stops him from bringing the children to my place since his wife was in the hospital”.
Rev Oyekola, who said he could not join the rescue team because of the state of his health, stated that the children would have been saved if the other tenants had raised an alarm.
A pathetic scene of ruin is what describes the broken remains of the apartment where the bereaved’s family occupied. Apart from the main flat, which is an uncompleted building where the landlord and some tenants stay, the adjoining houses in the compound can best be described as shanties. Spaces which ought to have been left for proper ventilation and emergency had substandard buildings erected on them. It is in one of these compartments comprising three rooms that the Ndubisi siblings were roasted to death. The other buildings in the compound were untouched.
Mrs. Victoria Majodumu, a chief environmental health officer in Ifelodun LCDA who joined the Lagos State Environmental Monitoring Team (SEMO) to evacuate the charred remains of the children the morning after, criticised the landlord for using up all the space in the compound.
“He is a shylock landlord. He used up all the space meant for ventilation and emergency exit. I think the smoke of the fire would have killed the children first before they were burnt because two of them were joined together. The smoke itself is carbon monoxide and it suffocates and kills”.
Mrs Majodumu would later describe the sight of the burnt children as pathetic since they were burnt beyond recognition.
The death of the three children has left a deep cut in the hearts of many who knew them. A trader on the street where the children lived, who gave her name simply as Mrs Eze, said the children used to come over to her shop to play, describing the children as cute and cheerful. She lamented their awful death.
“Those children were cute. The last one was like a half cast. I don’t know the parents but the children used to come and play at my shop”, she told The Nation.
Mrs Ijeoma Ozuah, the proprietor of the school where the children attended, described the siblings as bright children who were eager to learn. She expressed shock at the fact that the children could not get help when the fire started. “That Ugonma, the eldest, if you cane her and she screamed, somebody from far way would hear because she had a very strong voice. She loved the younger ones and catered for them affectionately”.
As police investigation continues into the case, it is yet to be decided whether the mystery of how the children died in the fire would ever be unraveled and the suspects brought to face justice.
