Agony now trails the family of an Igbo trader, Emeka Ahabuike, who lost his three children and life savings in one fell swoop to a strange fire in Jigawa State. MUHAMMAD ZANGINA KURA, reports.
Emeka Ahabuike, a trader in Jigawa State is a bitter man. It may not be easy for him to sum up enough courage to explain what has happened to him, but the pains of losing all his three children and property to a mysterious fire in one fell swoop, is a blow too difficult for him and his family members to cope with.
Although the mysterious death of the children still appears to him as a fairytale, the reality has since begun to dawn on him, as the days passed by. The children’s untimely and brutal death has left him devastated making it very difficult for the fast food dealer to recover in days to come.
It was an accident that has left a sour taste in his mouth and inflicted him with a humbling spirit that only the strong and powerful can contend with, albeit painfully. The three children, whose names were given as Chichi, 8, Chidiebere, 5, and Kelechi, 2, were burnt to ashes by the strange fire that engulfed their building on Hakimi Street in Dutse , in Kasarau Quarters of Jigawa state capital at about 7: 30 pm last Monday.
It is a tragedy that has left many tongue tied and raising many questions since the incident broke out.? It is a loss the parents of the promising kids never imagined, one? they could have avoided at all costs.
But Emeka and his wife, Ngozi, must have wrongly calculated their plans for the children on the fateful day and they paid heavily for their miscalculation. Normally, Emeka, who runs a fast food joint in town, and his wife, who works with one of the popular hotels in the city, pick their children from school and keep them in the restaurant untill the mother closes around 8pm.
However, due to the surging cold propelled by the Harmattan, they took the children home earlier than usual around 6pm hoping to reunite with them at the close of work.
When they returned home, they didn’t met the children they way the left them. In fact, what they meet were charred remains of the once bouncing children-no life in any of them.
Neither their neighbours in? the densely-populated area nor the fire service has been able to pinpoint what caused the fire. It remains a mystery till date.
Emeka said he was in his shop when he received a call that his house was burning.
He said that as he rushed to the house, he discovered that the fire was burning in his apartment alone. What shocked him also was the realization that the fire did not touch much of his neighbours and none of them attempted to assist in rescuing any of the dead children when the fire started.
Emeka, a native of? Isuikwuato Ovim in Abia State,? pointed out that the source of the fire that killed his children remained strange to him and dismissed suggestions that it might have emanated from a candle as untenable, as he does not encourage the use of such items in his house.?
The death of Chichi, along with the other two children, was a tragedy that dealt with the little girl in quick succession. Her mother, who was Emeka’s sister-in-law, died only last August and she was adopted by the Ahabuikes as their child.?
“The children usually stay with me in my fast food restaurant till around 8pm when their mother will close from r work and take them home. But because of the cold, we decided to send them home by 5.45pm on that fateful day and not up to two hours later the children were killed in the fire.,” a distraught Emeka explained in tears.
Although the death of the children remains a painful loss, the attitude of his neighbours makes Emeka cringe even more. How on earth could they be so cruel to him that none of them attempted to assist the choking children?
Reports say the neighbours actually concentrated effort in salvaging the property of the Ahabuikes while the children were dying. Emeka said that one of the neighbours broke a part of his wall to remove some items from the house and that was all the assistance he could render to him.
“It is unfortunate that in a compound of about ten tenants none of them could assist the dying children. It is not possible for those at home to say they did not perceive the smell of smoldering fire or hear the desperate cries of the agonized children,” said Emeka’s senior brother.????????????????????????????????????????
The sobbing mother of the children, Ngozi, said she was shocked to discover that the children she dropped home two hours earlier had all been burnt to death by fire.
“I rushed back home once I got the information that my house was on fire. When I arrived the compound, I discovered that all my children had been turned to ashes and it was already too late to rescue them. I asked everybody what caused the fire and there was no reasonable answer. They were all gone. But I know they are in the bosom of God because they are innocent.?? She said she had resigned her fate to God and that she did not hold anything against those who were in a position to assist the dyingchildren but did not do anything about it.? But Samson Ijeoma, an engineer who hails from the same town with the Ahabuikes condemned the attitude of the neighbours and called for proper investigation of the circumstances surrounding the fire incident.
Ijeoma reasoned that even if the woman had done wrong, the neighbours should have rallied to salvage the children.?
Investigations however revealed that a lingering squabble between the Ahabuikes and their neighbours informed their laissez-faire attitude towards the troubling and costly incident. Although the firemen actually rushed to save the day, their intervention was rather too late and too little to change the situation.
Jigawa State Police Command spokesperson, Mr. Abdul Jijinri, said the police had drafted some officers and men to the area and that investigation had commenced to unravel the cause of the fire.
But Emeka’s landlord,? Alhaji Dalha Yusuf, said that? only God knows how the fire broke out? and? called on the authorities to come to the aid of the bereaved family who lost all the children and savings to the fire.