It was a sad entry into the new year for an octogenarian in Ekiti State, Mr Victor Oluwafemi Ajayi, whose building was razed by fire on January 1, 2020.
Our correspondent gathered that fire engulfed the three-flat building, located on Surulere Street, Isinla, opposite St. Jude’s Anglican Church, Ado-Ekiti, when Pa Ajayi and his wife, as well as their tenants were deep in sleep.
To the retired soldier and teacher, who will turn 83 years old in August this year, how the building went up in flames remained a mystery.
He said, “I still cannot say how such a thing happened. We had all gone to bed about 9.30pm on January 1, 2020 when, suddenly, at about 11.30pm, our housemaid, who was sleeping on a small bed, rose up shouting, ‘Daddy, Daddy, Mummy, Mummy, come out, come out, fire is blazing, come and see.’”
The couple said when they ran out of their apartment into the open, they were devastated to discover the whole building was already engulfed in fire.
The octogenarian said, “The whole place was black in flames when we began to come out. Dead black. We were even lucky to come out alive.
“We struggled to come out of the house. When we were coming out of the room with the key to the main exit door, I slumped twice before I got there and the key fell off my hand. So by the time I got to the door, the key had got lost. We began to shout and shout until the next-house neighbour arrived to force open the door and we staggered out to safety.”
Pa Ajayi estimated the cost of his building to be about N10 million.
Leading our correspondent into what was once the sitting room, the old man pointed to some burnt items and lamented, “Look at that banner; that is my 80th year of my being alive. Look at the burnt two televisions, at the burnt pieces of furniture, at the burnt electrical and household appliances.
“There is nothing you can even say is recovered, everything has been destroyed by the fire. The burnt items were all I had gathered from my sweat over the years. This is the only house I have. Now, everything is gone.”
According to him, officials of the Ekiti State Emergency Management Agency had visited him and promised to take some measures, which they didn’t disclose, to assist.
The octogenarian noted that he had once been a soldier and actually was in service when the Nigerian civil war raged from 1967 to 1970. He retired in June 1982 and became a teacher thereafter.
Wearing quite a forlorn look, Pa Ajayi said, “God is the father of an orphan. As an individual, if the government can help me, whatever they can do, I will appreciate. He appealed to the state government to consider him in their deliberations for rehabilitation of the building, saying he had lost a lot to the fire.
The fire incident also seriously affected two of the tenants in the building. Like Pa Ajayi, the tenants lost virtually all their belongings in their apartments to the fire.
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