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From Rose Ejembi, Makurdi
It’s been weeks since death visited the home of Mr. Ikwuyatun Odeh and took three of his four children away in one fell swoop, but the shock of that mysterious midnight tragedy is still very fresh.
For the man and his wife, Peace, it is still like a nightmare that they have been praying to wake up from. Or could it be that the surname of the man, Ikwuyatun, which means ‘death has happened to me’, has actually happened to the family?
On December 17, 2021, three of Odeh’s children were killed in a midnight fire that razed their apartment at the Jesus College Quarters in Otukpo, Benue State.
Because of the suddenness and intensity of the fire, their father tried unsuccessfully to rescue his children whom he saw going to bed that night. By the time the fire subsided, the charred remains of the children were brought out and buried.
Narrating their ordeal to our correspondent in Makurdi, husband and wife, who were in the house at the time of the inferno, explained how it all happened.
According to the 40-year-old mother of four, the family had retired to bed after prayer on the night of Friday, December 16, 2021, only to be woken by the shouts of “Fire!” from the young house-help staying with them.
Husband and wife said they slept in the living room that night while three of their four children and their housemaid slept in their room.
Peace said: “At about 1am, my husband and I were sleeping in the parlour when the girl staying with me tapped me and started shouting, fire. I ran outside to get detergent and water from the tank to quench the fire.
“At the same time, my husband and I rushed to our room where our three children were sleeping but it was too late as the fire had engulfed everywhere.
“Our first son was miraculously spared because he had left the previous day for school to collect his newsletter and had to sleep over in school. That was how he was saved from the fire.
“My husband tried to force himself into the room but it was not possible because of the intensity of the fire. His face even got burnt in the process. We didn’t hear any sound or perceive any smell and I doubt if it was electrical surge that caused the fire because I don’t even have any socket in my room. Neighbours tried to help too but it was too late.
“My first daughter, Naomi, 17, was supposed to write WAEC this year. My third-born, Godson Odeh, was seven, in primary two. The last child, Grace, a girl, turned five in December last year.”
Asked if she had any premonition about the tragedy, Peace said what she had was rather a revelation that she didn’t really take seriously, until the unfortunate incident.
“I had a revelation that something would happen because, a few days before then, I just discovered that I was suddenly afraid of everything. My heart would just be beating and then, suddenly, something said, what if something bad happens to your children, and I quickly rejected it.
“If I knew this was going to happen, the church would have been my home throughout that period. I wouldn’t have even planned for any Christmas at all. I would have packed all my children to go and lay on the altar in church.
“That night, I was so tired that I slept throughout the period of our evening prayer. Maybe my children would have been spared if I had led prayer that night.”
Peace, who recalled how God, through prayer, had saved her from kidnappers in 2020 and from bandits’ attack in 2021, said, if only she had been more prayerful, God would have spared her children.
“I and my younger brother were kidnapped in November 2020 in Otukpo. I was later released after four days to go and source for ransom for my brother and I believe God delivered us because I was praying throughout.
“On May 27, 2021, I survived an attack by bandits who shot at our vehicle at Naka, killing the driver and some other persons in the vehicle. I survived with a gun shot wound in my back. We were travelling from Otukpo to Makurdi that day. I am recalling all of this just to buttress the point that God answers my prayers,” she said.
Reliving her last moments with her first daughter, Peace said she had taken her to the salon to make her hair that day and they were together at the salon till evening when they returned home to continue the braiding the next day.
“That day, I got her an expensive lace and shoes. I took her to the tailor to measure her and then I took her to the salon to wash and braid her hair. We were at the salon till about 6pm and the stylist couldn’t finish the hair.
“It was remaining a small part but she asked us to return before 7am the next day to complete the small portion that was remaining. Unfortunately, that never happened because she died before morning.
“The youngest child asked the father where God was and when the father responded that God was in heaven, she said she wanted to go to heaven to see God. When I was told what she said, I felt she just wanted to go close to God because I take them to church every Sunday. We didn’t attach any serious meaning to the statement until after the sad incident,” she added.
On his part, Ikwuyatun, a deputy director and staff of the Benue State Teaching Service Board, said he could remember the shout of fire from their young housemaid.
“On December 16, my children were sleeping in the parlour and after the evening prayer, I told the eldest of my kids to take the younger ones inside the room. She first took Grace, the youngest child, and then returned to pick Godson and while he was being taken into the room, he shouted, Daddy, Daddy, I don’t want to sleep inside, and I replied that he was sleeping already.
“We all went to bed, until late into the night when I heard the voice of our housemaid shouting fire.
“The next thing I saw was fire everywhere as if there was an inflection all over the building. I tried like three times to force myself into the room where my children were sleeping but it wasn’t possible because the fire was too much. That’s how I lost my three children in one day,” he said, weeping profusely.
Recalling his last moments with his kids, the 60-year-old man said he had gone to his farm close to the house with them that day to pick beans.
“When we came back, we were all cleaning up the beans in the courtyard when my last baby, Grace, asked me where God was and I said God was in heaven. Then she said she wanted to go and see God in heaven. Godson also joined her and said the same thing.
“I didn’t caution them because I didn’t attach any meaning to it at that time. It was after the incident that I started thinking, could this be the heaven that these children we’re talking about then?”
The distraught couple, who are now living at the mercy of people, thanked Governor Samuel Ortom and his deputy, Benson Abounu, the senator representing Benue South senatorial district, Abba Moro, and other well-meaning Nigerians, who have visited and assisted them in one way or the other.
They are equally calling on good-spirited Nigerians and organisations to assist them, as they have lost everything they worked for to the fire.
