Tragedy struck in the early hours, of Friday, when an inferno, suspected to be from an electric sparkle, razed down two buildings, leaving nothing to save.
The inferno struck on Adesiyan Street in the Ilupeju axis of the metropolis, leaving two buildings on the street (Numbers 31 and 32) completely razed down, although no life was lost.
Meanwhile, none of the residents and eyewitnesses could immediately categorically state the cause of the inferno, except for insinuations and suspicions from them.
Eyewitnesses said that their suspicion hover around a sparkle of electricity cables from one of the apartments in the building where the fire erupted out.
As of 8:00a.m, the incident had been contained by fire fighters, although victims lament that the rescue mission was rather a belated one.
The victims, in a mood that best describes hopelessness, queried that rescue teams like the fire services, National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) and Lagos State Emergency Management Agency (LASEMA), were not swift in response to their plight, although promptly alerted.
Bemoaning the situation, one of the victims, Fisoye Akintaju said, “The situation is a very pathetic one. Nobody can yet say the exact cause but we all suspect that it must have started out from the apartment of a certain group of guys who are all bachelors in that building. We can’t even see anyone of them, as we speak.
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“You won’t believe that immediately the incident happened, we started calling fire fighters from Cappa in Oshodi and we couldn’t get a quick response until the one at Anthony attended to us.
“Before they came, the fire had razed down everything. We couldn’t even save a common pin.
“People fought for their safety first and I can tell you that the loss is a huge one. We can’t yet estimate the loss. All we have now is what we wore to bed, as you can see.”
For 60-year-old Joshua Arowoshafe, who claimed he was first to alert everyone on the fire outbreak, the situation still didn’t deal a less deadly blow with him, as all he can now boast of is the short he wore to bed.
“We were all asleep when the fire started around 3:30am. We merely heard a noise from the other compound and I immediately woke up everyone to come out but by then, the fire had gutted the ceiling already. It must have started from a certain flat behind that building. As I speak to you, all I have left is this short I wore to bed,” said Arowoshafe.
However, all effort to contact the spokesman of LASEMA over the inferno proved abortive, as he could not answer his calls as at the time of filing this report.
