Laide Raheem, Abeokuta
Abeokuta based lawyer, Nurudeen Olaleye, has lost his BL, LLB and other professional certificates, to a midnight inferno which razed his family compound in Oke-Toku Area of Abeokuta metropolis, the Ogun State capital.
The inferno, which was reported to have started around 1a.m on Thursday, equally burnt 12 rooms and adjoining four shops in the compound, destroying about N6m worth of goods.
Incidentally, a station of the Ogun State Fire Service is situated just a stone throw from the scene of the incident, but nothing could be done to salvage the situation.
When Daily Sun visited the scene, victims of the inferno were seen lamenting their loses.
A shop owner and the victim of the fire, Morufat Tejuosho, told our correspondent that she lost goods worth N3.5m to the incident. She said she got a call around 1.30a.m on Wednesday that her shop was on fire.
Morufat added that the fire station very close to the incident scene couldn’t come to the aid of the victims as Fire Officer in charge of the station said there was no fire engine at the station.
She stated further that before another fire station at the Onikoko Area of the metropolis, which was later contacted, could arrive at the scene, the fire had consumed all her goods.
Narrating his ordeal, Sunday Ebenezer, said his music equipment, two new power generators and packets of DVDs estimated at N2.5m, perished in the inferno.
He explained that nobody could ascertain the cause of the midnight fire and appealed to the state government to come the rescue of the victims.
Olaleye, who told Daily Sun that his family house was one of the three ancestral homes in the compound, declared “I lost all my academic certificates and other valuables to the fire”.
He explained that the certificates had been kept in one of the affected rooms where his immediate younger brother was living in.
Olaleleye, who blamed the unavailability of a fire engine at a government designated station situated very close to the location of the incident, submitted that “the inferno would not have caused severe damages if the fire service could respond on time to the distress call.”