By Iduozee Paul, Benin
Wonders they say shall never cease. A family of 15 on Friday, June11, 2021, escaped being burnt to death in an inferno that razed a building in Ikpoba community, along Benin-Agbor Road in Ikpoba-Okha Local Government Area of Edo State.
Timely alert from a relative was the saving grace for the family that included children and grand-children on a visit.
Narrating how they escaped, Ibude Kelly said a relative had knocked on his door to alert him of the fire. He said although he was able to escape with his children and grandchildren, who were visiting, he could not salvage any of his belongings.
Aid he:
“It was one of my relatives that notified me that fire was burning in our building, if not, it would have been a different case. If not for my relative who came knocking at my door, it would have been so horrible. God averted the disaster.
“You can see for yourself my brother, I was unable to escape with any of my property apart from my family members. We were very lucky, 15 of us were in the building including my grandchildren,” state but lamented, “I’m empty right now, my properties are all gone. Where do I start from?”
According to an eyewitness who spoke to the National Point Newspaper, the inferno which occurred around 1am started from a set of shops.
“Oga this fire is unimaginable, this is a physical handiwork of people that are naturally designed for evil assignment and they have done their worst,” he said.
One of the shop owners, Mr Kadiri said he received a call around 3am notifying him that his shop was on fire but there was nothing he could do.
“The fire extended to this next building but it was officers from the Fire Service that saved the situation, otherwise, this building would have been down like this very one by now,” he said pointing to the razed building.
He commended the Fire Service for quickly halting spread of the fire lamenting that goods worth millions were destroyed by the inferno. “Thank God for the officers of the Edo State Fire Service, they tried their best. Our goods worth millions of naira went down the drain just like that. The cause of the fire is unknown because, as at the time of the incident there was no light.”
