A man believed to be in his early 60s, has set himself ablaze in a
rented hotel apartment in Nyanya, a satellite town of Abuja, Federal
Capital Territory (FCT).
The incident which occurred early hours
of Thursday, also saw the entire hotel burnt, even as the deceased, Dr.
Isaac Ojukwu, was equally burnt beyond recognition.
Narrating the
ugly incident to newsmen in Abuja on Friday, the owner of the burnt
Hotel and Associate Professor at the Nasarawa State University, Keffi,
Sylvanus M. Itodo said it still remained a shock, how an adult would
just take his own life, without known cause.
“We were all sitting
together that fateful night (Wednesday night) before he left to watch
football match and I also left the hotel premises by 11pm, to go and
sleep.
“It was around 12am that I received a phone call from one
of the boys in the hotel, crying, that my hotel was under fire. Before I
could get down here, the flame was everywhere; and it took the efforts
of the Federal Fire Service to prevent the inferno from escalating to
the surrounding houses”, Itodo lamented.
Our investigation
revealed that, the deceased, who hailed from Ohuhu in Umuahia area of
Abia State, has been staying in the apartment, Boundary Plaza Hotel,
Nyanya, for the past 5 years.
Though it was gathered that he was
married to a German woman with kids, it was, however, revealed that,
none of his family members, including the wife or children, had paid him
a visit all through his stay in the hotel.
An eye witness account
by his direct neighbour, Ohize Yakubu, who has been living in the hotel
apartment since the day of his wedding in 2013 said, those lodging in
the hotel made frantic efforts to pull the deceased out of the building
but he struggled and ran back into the burning room.
“We went to
watch Arsenal and Bayern match that night, I came back to the hotel and
Dr. Isaac came in 5 minutes later. After some minutes, I started hearing
strange sound from his room, which is directly opposite my room. He was
not shouting loud enough, all I could hear was ‘yeh’, ‘yeh’.
“At
first, I was scared to open door, because I didn’t know if it was a
robbery attack, until I heard and recognised the voice of one of our
neighbours, beckoning on Dr. Isaac to open door and come out, shouting
fire, fire.
“Then I asked my wife to take my son and rush out of
the building while I joined other neighbours and we forced his door
open, we met him standing in the sitting room while fire was burning in
the bedroom. He was unhurt, we then held his hands and asked him to
follow us, all of a sudden, he struggled his way from our hands and ran
into the burning room.
“At this point, everyone ran back as the
inferno had started escalating and all my belongings got burnt. My wife
only escaped with my son. I was engaged in the process of rescuing Dr.
Isaac, and lost all my belongings in the process”, Yakubu narrated.
In
the case of Mr. Promise Nkwachukwu Okem, a young man who arrived
Nigeria from Ghana, one month ago, he was able to pick a few things from
his room (downstairs), before the fire degenerated into the zone.
He,
however, said, two ladies who just finished serving the NYSC and
searching for jobs, were not that lucky, as they could not pick anything
from their rooms, save for their night gowns. “They could not pick
anything from their rooms”, Okem said.
As at the time of filing
this report, no one could explain in clear terms, what could have gone
wrong with the deceased, to have warranted him taking his own life.
Even
though the corpse has been deposited at the Asokoro General Hospital by
the Police, the family members are yet to arrive Abuja.
A source
at the hotel also revealed that the deceased had early this week, moved
all his belongings, including clothes, to another chalet within the
hotel premises, saying he would love to change his room.
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