By Fatima Muraina

|

Amid-day inferno at the weekend engulfed a building at  Ogo Oluwa street, around Yayi Akorede, Oshinle Quarters, Akure.

The Hope Metro gathered that the inferno left no fewer than twenty tenants of the house homeless, including an expectant mother, a widow with six children, and aged men and women.

The inferno, it was learnt, started around 10:00am and lasted for few hours.

 According to eyewitnesses, frantic  efforts of other residents and men of the state fire service, to quench the inferno proved abortive.

When our correspondent visited the scene, it was observed that  the inferno razed all the belongings of occupants of the house, as neighbours donated clothings to them.

Speaking with The Hope Metro in separate interviews, the affected tenants lamented in anguish, crying to Nigerians and particularly government and philanthropists to come to their aid for survival.

Eye witnesses account had it that they saw smoke emanating from the ceiling in  one of the tenant’s room which spread quickly across the entire house.

All attempts made to stop the fire proved abortive, despite the early arrival of men of the state fire service, who were unable to salvage the situation, but stood watching as the property were consumed.

A tenant, Mama Funmilayo Ayegbokiki, in her early 70, said she tied towel round her body and in the bathroom when the inferno engulfed the building.

She narrated:”I came back from vigil, and was very tired, but I opted to take a shower before relaxing. On getting to the bathroom with a towel tied on my chest. I was called that there was excessive smoke emanating from the ceiling through our co-tenant’s apartment opposite mine. It belongs to a pregnant woman, who was cooking in her kitchen.

“The fire I saw, made me ran back to my room, when I saw the traces of smoke emanating from my neighbour’s kitchen.

Also, another tenant, Mrs Funbi Fayoke Omodara, explained that the incident happened, not quite long she left the room with a cup of water to the kitchen where she was cooking.

According to he  she told her neighbour, one Madam Ayegbokiki, that there was still electricity in other buildings, but there was power failure in their building, not knowing that it had developed fault at the ceiling which led to a spark and caught fire that spread across the entire building.

An official of the Ondo State Fire service in Akure, who confirmed the incident, said that they were on ground and did their best to stop the fire, bu it was all to no avail.