• Property worth several millions lost
• I’m yet to overcome shock, says victims
From Okey Sampson, Umuahia
•Section of the burnt building
•Anothe section of the burnt building
Mrs. Stella Archibong, a mother of three, and five other members of her family were putting up with her businessman husband in Onitsha, Anambra State. On December 18, 2018, according to her, she relocated to their family house on Road K, House 2, World Bank Housing Estate, Umuahia, in Abia State.
In her words, she has been living in the house with her three children and two adopted children, Miss Chisom and Miss Chimamanda Onwuasoanya whose parents – Mr and Mrs Collins and Florence Onwuasoanya, she said live in Houston, Texas, in the United States.
The family had been living happily in the house since they relocated from Onitsha. But none of them would forget in a hurry the incident that occurred on April 30. It was the day nature handed them an unkind gift, the day a mysterious fire gutted the family house in Umuahia, destroying all their property and rendering them homeless.
How did it happen? Mrs. Archibong, 52, from Arochukwu in Arochukwu Local Government Area of Abia State and married to a man from Cross River State, told the reporter that on the fateful day, after completing the daily house chores, she prepared her children for school after which they ate and left. The lady, a private school teacher, said as the last person to leave the house, she made sure all electrical appliances were switched off before she left the house for the school where she teaches, which is just a few poles away from her house.
According to her, she had been in the classroom all through the morning and afternoon. Then about 2:30 pm, Mrs Archibong said something told her to come out of the classroom and look towards the direction of her house.
She said she immediately did that. But what she saw was a thick smoke coming out from the direction of her house and spiralling skywards.
“I rushed down, only to get to the house to find out that everywhere was on fire. And by the time I came, five rooms were already gone. The lady narrated that fire fighters were immediately invited, but because it was already late, they did little or nothing to salvage the situation, although they prevented the fire from spreading to other buildings around.
Mrs Archibong said the cause of the fire had remained a mystery. “When I finished cooking that morning, before leaving the house, I switched off all electrical appliances, including the ones in the kids’ room. I remembered when we were leaving that morning, there was no light, yet we had to switch off all electrical appliances.
“They brought back the light around 12.30 pm according to a tricycle operator who lives around the area. He said when they brought back the light, electric bulbs in his house all broke as a result of high voltage. So, I wouldn’t know if that was what triggered the fire. Nobody was around to give a vivid account,” she said.
Mystery fire
What makes the fire incident more of a mystery was that the house was built in-between two three-storey and other buildings that surrounded it, yet when a fire of such magnitude engulfed it, nobody in the adjoining buildings admitted to have noticed any smoke coming from the compound.
Mrs Archibong said: “Nobody living around us claimed to have seen the house on fire and nobody contacted anybody. And that is why I will continue to believe it was a mystery fire.”
She, however, said she had no suspects in mind. “I am not suspecting any foul play because since I don’t believe I have enemies around me, I don’t see anybody thinking evil against me or my family.”
Property lost
The classroom teacher said all she and her husband had laboured all through their life, went with the fire.
“All the children’s clothing, except the uniforms they wore to school were all gone. The same is applicable to Chisom and Chimamanda Onwuasoanya who are in the university. Apart from the few clothes they went back to school with, every other thing they had is all gone.”
Despite losing all to the fire, there were some invaluable things God miraculously saved from the fire for Mrs Archibong – her certificates.
“I kept all my certificates somewhere inside my room. So, when I came back and saw the fire, the first thing that went to my mind was my certificates, thinking of what I will do in life without those certificates.
“But God did something spectacular, something miraculous. Immediately after the fire, I went through the rubble of what used to be my room, searching through the ashes. I touched what looked like the bag I put my certificates in and when I brought it out, behold the fire that destroyed every other thing in that room, did not touch the bag and the certificates were intact.
“Apart from my certificates God miraculously saved for me, like I said earlier, every other thing I had was gone, I can’t start naming them.”
Accommodation problem
The fire incident has completely turned the Archibongs and the two Onwusoanyas into displaced persons, needing a roof over their head. What they presently have as accommodation is temporary, besides being most inconvenient.
“Since the incident happened, we’ve been sleeping in a hotel where we pay N20,000 per night, as that is the least we can get around here. Since I don’t have the money, good Nigerians have been assisting us in paying the hotel bill, but you know there is a limit to what they can do
“We are passing through a lot at the moment. The arrangement is not convenient for us at all. Since we only pay for accommodation in the hotel, every morning, I come to the burnt house to cook food for my children. They stay in the open to eat before going to school and this has been a daily routine.
“The nasty feelings I get each day I enter the compound to cook food for my children and seeing them eating in the open, is not something I can share with anybody. And that is why I am appealing to government to come to our aid. What we need most now is accommodation.”
The school teacher said going by the financial state of the family, it will be practically impossible for them to rebuild the house, “I am a teacher and my husband, a trader. We don’t have the financial muscle to rebuild the house. And that is where I again appeal to Abia Government to come to our aid.”
Mrs Archibong praised the fire fighters from the Abia State Fire Service for making sure the fire did not get to adjoining buildings. “Though the loss is too much, I have told my children to accept it the way it is with the hope that in no distant time, we will get back all we lost in the inferno.”