Bola Shittu
30 April 2004
Lagos — She had gone to bed pretty early, instructing her house maid to wake her up when her husband returns from work.
The time that Tuesday night of April 7, 2004, was past 8pm already. As Mrs. Essien, fondly addressed as Mama Richard, retired to bed, she never contemplated that death was close on her.
Activities around their Block 15, Flat 2, Games Village, located in the heart of Bode Thomas, Surulere, Lagos, were still on the upbeat. She had taken her dinner, rertired to bed to await her husband's arrival.
Moments she went into the bedroom, her husband arrived into a black out as public power supply had as usual gone out. Like most other families in the estate, they had long provided for themselves an electricity generating plant. And to ensure that they were able to put it into use whenever they desire to do so, they had always had petrol in reserve.
On this day, they had five litres of fuel in reserve.
Mr. Essien made to light up the place, handed over the gallon of fuel to the maid to fill the generator while he attended to other things.
But the maid did the unexpected while Essien was outside. They had always carried out the ritual of refilling the electricity generating plant with a torch light, which the house help already had in her hand. Instead of going straight to do just that, she placed the fuel can near a lit candle on a table in the seating room and skipped into the next flat to catch up with the discussion they were having before the arrival of her boss.
The petrol caught fire, the gallon exploded, and the table went on fire. Like bush fire, it spread quickly, while the maid, who had got wind of the fire, was battling to put it out.
Essien was said to have been attracted by the cry of the girl, who was desperately trying to put out the fire.
A confused Essien ran into the house and attempted to throw out the can of petrol through the window, but the move caused the fire to extend into other parts of the house.
While the battle to put out the fire was on, Mama Richard, Richard, 4, Ben, 2, and Junior, one, were still sleeping peacefully inside the bedroom without a slight knowledge of what was happening in the next room.
Gradually, the window blinds caught fire and and in no time spread to other parts of Block 15. That was when Essien shouted for help; and his wife woke up.
"When she woke up, the entire flat had been engulfed and there was no escape route for her anymore," eye witnesses claimed, as relations of the Essiens, in the absence of Essien, who was said to be on danger list with the house maid in an undisclosed hospital, decli-ned to utter a word on the incident.
Obvious to her that she had been trapped with her children by the fire, a confused Mrs. Essien grabbed two of her children and hid herself behind a giant refrigerator in the kitchen close to the bedroom to shield them from the fire that was spreading fast to the area.
She held unto the babies, thinking that help would eventaully come their way, but it never came. They were found roasted to death behind the fridge several hours later when the fire was eventually put out by a combined team of policemen from Bode Thomas Police Station, men of the Federal Fire Service and members of the public.
Mrs. Essien, Ben and Junior died of suffocation while Richard was roasted to death by the fire on the bed, where he slept before the fire started.
The incident, which caused free flow of tears from all eyes, had left the community in shock.
Beside, Essien and the maid were still on danger list in an undisclosed hospital in Surulere, having sustained second degree burns.
While members of the family declined to discuss the issue, pleading that they were allowed to recover from the shock of the incident of losing four members of their family without making it a public debate, the Lagos State Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Mr. Emmanuel Ighodalo, warned members of the public against sending house helps or junior ones to handle inflammable items since such acts may cause huge losses.
He said the Police and the Fire Service did all they could to put out the fire, but it was too late to save the lives of the deceased.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2004 This Day. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
