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• Regrets, tears as three siblings die in Lagos Christmas Eve inferno
• We didn’t find their corpses; all we saw were skulls and bones
– Deceased’s uncle
The mood in Mr Stephen Onyeka Omatu’s home in Ejigbo, a Lagos suburb, is sad and sombre. Though the festivities of the New Year can be felt outside, yet here inside the home of Omatu, gloom, tears and swollen faces are all that greet one. The family is finding it difficult to wake up from the long nightmare that, even with the passage of 2025, has refused to go away.
It was a nightmare that started on the evening of Wednesday, December 24, the 2025 Christmas Eve. Just a few hours into the evening, the Omatu family had lost three members: Stephen Onyeka Omatu, 40, Casmir Nnabueke Omatu, 39, and Collins Kenechukwu Omatu, 37. They died in the fire incident that engulfed the Great Nigeria Insurance House, Lagos Island. How could the family come to terms with losing such able-bodied young men in the prime of their lives?
For Stephen’s young wife, Chioma, in the parlour, she seemed physically present, but her eyes were glassy like a person in a trance. How would you explain that you were talking to your spouse, making arrangements on how to go home after a successful business day, and the next moment, he was consumed in an inferno that initially looked harmless? How would one explain to people that the husband she had been struggling with to build a business could just go at the dawn of their business success?
A Christmas Eve that started well…
Stephen Onyeka Omatu (Mr Classic) and his wife had left home for business on the morning of Christmas’ Eve. They knew it was going to be a long day because their company’s consignment had just arrived and there were so many orders to package and deliver. The consolation was that the next day was Christmas day; the family would have time to rest and relax.
Chioma explained what happened a few minutes before the tragedy. “It started at 4 p.m. I know the time because I was telling my husband that I was ready to go home because I wanted to get something for the kids. And then I heard people shouting. There was black smoke coming up. And then when I came out to look what was happening, people were shouting fire, fire, fire. I saw the fire on the fourth floor, when I saw smoke coming out from the air, black smoke, that is, dark smoke. And I saw people were rushing out. I tried climbing up, but the building’s passage was narrow. People were pushing me down like, ah-ah, there is fire, and people are coming down, where are you going? I was telling them, I want to go and check my shop. When I went to the shop, I saw some of the people that own the building carrying fire extinguishers.
“I saw my husband and some of the people, the people working for his company, packing things. Then he said I should carry school bags and be going downstairs. And then I took the school bags and went downstairs with some of his female workers. We went downstairs and when we were downstairs, the fire was still coming and people were shouting, gradually gathering downstairs. Still the fire was on the first floor then. Some people were just angry asking, “Ah-ah, where is the fire service? Are they not hearing fire? They are just at the back here, why are they not coming?” I was like, ah-ah, so there’s a fire service station near here. They said, “Yes now, at the back here. They are close.” And then we kept quiet and I was waiting to see what would happen. The fire was on the first floor.”
From flame to raging inferno
Chioma said going by her observation, the fire service came after about 45 minutes to one hour.
“We were just looking but there was no urgency, like bringing out their equipment to try and start putting off the fire, but our whole mind was on our people because our two stores were up, and one other small place that we were using under the stairs on the second floor extension. Then the fire service started trying to put out the fire, but it was not working. They entered the second floor and they quenched the fire. We thought all was going to be all right. From the second floor, next thing I saw was that the last floor was now bringing out this smoke that used to come out as if they were pouring charcoal into a furnace. This thing was now too much. The fire service people started coming, driving as if they were coming with full force to quench the fire. They were asking people to get out of the way, using their siren.
“My people were bringing things down. My husband came down while the fire was on. I thank God. I was like, what is going on? They brought out many things because he has a lot of workers. He said that they were doing well, that they had already brought out a lot of things, and that they were coming down. I said, God, thank God. I told him , come, let’s just look for how we will pack these ones here. He said okay, that he was coming. He went back, trying to help his brothers. After sometime, he came down again, he was asking for one of the staff. He went back.
“The fire then entered the second and third floor and even the fourth one. It was burning like hell fire. This time, it was more than fire. It was bad. We were far from the place, but the heat was hitting us. I saw my husband’s brother and I asked him, where are others? He said, he’s coming. Then next thing I saw, one part of the building, that is the extension part collapsed. And people were trying to run away to safety. Some fell on me; I fell on top of the goods. Even the goods were scattered on the road.”
Tragedy struck
She continued: “I saw one of my husband’s brothers. They are twins. I asked him what is going on, where are others? Next thing I saw was my husband’s brother in the middle of the road, trying to make a call and then he fainted.”
That was when Chioma realised that her husband and two of his younger siblings were still inside the building.
“My husband was also with his immediate younger brother that visited inside the plaza. He said he was supposed to travel on Christmas day, which is the 25th morning, to go and see his wife where they are living. So, he told us to bring out his bag for him, which I did. He said he was coming to collect his bag from the shop. And that is where the fire accident happened and he had to help out. He was helping his brother. Not as if he was part of the business. No, he was not part of the business. He has his own business. He came and saw the situation and decided to help his brother.” Chioma found it difficult continuing the recollection and had to be excused.
But for providence, Ugochukwu Omatu, would also have lost his life in the inferno with his siblings. Unfortunately, his twin brother was not so lucky.
While the other siblings were evacuating the goods from their shop, the sacks to pack the shoes and bags got finished. Ugochukwu left the others to go and get more bags. After wandering for a while and could not get bags, he decided to come back, only to discover that the fire had spread. He tried to join his brothers on the second floor of the burning building, but the fire and heat from the staircase made it impossible for him. He came out and tried reaching any of his brothers who were still in the building, but he could not. That was when he realised that he had lost them. He fainted.
Ugochukwu blamed the Lagos State Fire Service for the loss of lives and property. “The fire started at the building’s extension around 4:00 p.m. We looked and then noticed that it was just a little fire. And then before you know it, they started calling the fire service. Fire service people came around 5pm. Yes, around 5pm. By then, the fire had increased a bit. People had started panicking, packing their goods. I checked my shop together with my brothers, and then we noticed that we had a lot of goods. Our goods came in new, most especially what we had to sell in January. So, we just wanted to stock up and then go for our holiday, to resume by January. When we saw the fire, we said the fire was too small. These people could quench it. People were panicking, running about. But we were like, let’s relax. These people will quench this fire. We now noticed that the fire service came, they were not doing anything.
“They came, they just parked. They were not initiating the routines you see during fire incidents, you know when there is fire. Normally, if they come, the next thing is that you see them dragging out the hose, but they were not doing that. Everyone was like, what’s going on? Later I learnt they wanted money from the owner of the building. But I wasn’t there; I can’t confirm that.
“At a point, I noticed that some people were close to those fire service people, normal individuals like us. So, it was later I got to find out that those individuals noticed that since the man in charge was not really heeding to their demand, they could help in raising some money. I was told that some money exchanged hands before they started putting out the fire. But as I said, I can’t confirm that. I wasn’t there. By then, the fire was already increasing.
“That was when I called out to my brothers and said, “Come on, water don pass garri. Let us pack our goods and leave. Now, we have goods at the main building and at the extension.”
Ugochukwu said out of his five siblings, he lost three in the fire.
Chief Basil Bobity Ndedigwe, the Ezennaoma 11 of Ihiala is a sad man. He is an uncle to the deceased. He said his sadness and anguish is not just about losing his three nephews in such an unfortunate incident. In his words, it is what he believes to be the lack of meaningful efforts to rescue the victims while the fire was raging.
“ I am really sad and in pain. We are from Ihiala in Anambra State. I lost my nephews, three young men. The chief executive is the late Mr Onyeka Steven Omatu. They deal in foreign shoes and bags. They import goods. They are importers. They distribute and market physically and online. The other two that lost their lives are Casmir Nnabuike Omatu and Ekenedilichukwu Collins Omatu. They are all of the same mother and father. Ugochukwu was lucky to survive the fire. They were all there.
Searching the bodies of loved ones
Chief Ndedigwe also talked about the harrowing experience the family had passed through in an effort to recover the body of the dead relations to no avail: ”Then, as a family, what is the next thing after losing three members of the family? It was to recover their bodies. The next day, the fire was still on and we couldn’t get in there. So, these people remaining inside have been burning. So, even there are many trapped inside the fire. They have been calling their relatives that are still there, asking if there was any effort to help them, until their phones ran down. After three days, a guy was rescued.
“Before the night of December 30, we had no access to the place. So, it was on the night of December 30 around 11:00pm that we were able to access the building to try and recover their bodies.”
With the hope that the dead bodies of his relatives would still be at the scene of the fire on the second floor, Chief Ndedigwe said he went to Isolo and paid an ambulance vehicle to convey the remains of the dead young men back to Ihialla in Anambra State.
“As we went inside, we couldn’t recognise anybody. We could not even see any dead bodies. What we saw were skulls and human bones. There was no flesh. You cannot see anything like clothes or flesh. So, you can’t, you can’t differentiate them. We can’t differentiate, even though there were more than 20 skulls inside. Some had only their skeletons remaining. But nothing like flesh in that very house.”
Asked if there was any way he could recover his dead relatives, he replied, “Everything was burnt to ashes.. So, we went to their side, because many other people were helping them to salvage goods. They got burnt. Since there was no corpse to carry, I had to compensate the ambulance man I had earlier hired to convey their bodies home. There is nothing we can do. We can only carry the ashes so that we will show the home people that this is how it is.
“It is unfortunate. Siblings from same mother and father. They were the children of my own sister. My sister died years back, and their father died June 14, 2018. So, that’s how it is. And there is nothing we can do. We can only carry the ashes so that we will show the home people that this is how it is. Because if we carry any skeletons, we don’t know whose skeleton it is. So, it’s only the ashes we want to represent. To represent the three people that, these are their ashes, that this is the place they died. So, we take the ashes.”
Saturday Sun reached to the Public Relations Officer of the Lagos State Fire Service, Mr Amodu Shakiru to react to some of the claims made against the alleged poor response of the service and the alleged demand for money before the personnel would put out the fire. He said the alleged demand for some millions before they would put out the fire was untrue, insisting that there was no evidence of such.
Asked why it took the fire service on the ground long before they started fighting the fire at the Great Nigeria Insurance House, Shakiru said he was not aware that such happened. He said if that was true, it must be because of the difficulty in accessing the burning building as a result of the large number of people who would normally troop to anywhere there was a fire incident. He explained that the responsibility of the state fire service is to serve the public, and that there was no way they would not take any fire incident seriously.
Shakiru later sent to this reporter a video clip from a television news channel, where an interviewee claimed that some people were negotiating with a private fire service company. The person had alleged: “What I observed when the fire started around 4pm is that they called some private fire service in the first place. As they called them, those ones demanded N30 million. The thing started on one floor; it was not even everywhere. If they had tried to stop it then, it would not have got to this extent. That private fire service company should be banned.”
For the Omatu family, the burial rites for the departed have started with a service of songs at Jesus the Saviour Catholic Church, Bucknor Estate, Lagos. There will be no corpses for proper closure. All the family would have to do with is burnt sand from the second floor shop of the three siblings where they took their last breath.
