The lack of activities at the shop is a stark contrast to the usual buzzing nature of the business, as painted by him. Still, Mr. Ikechukwu Awam, has not failed to show up daily at his shop since the June 2 tanker fire incident which razed no fewer than 40 shops, including his.All that is left of his multimillion Naira phone business are an empty shop, some debris and a pair of charred doors standing at the entrance to his shop.
With nowhere else to go in the morning, Awam dresses up, heads for his burnt shop and stares hard at the remains, a painful reminder of a once simple life. In his daily state of reverie, Awam hopes for some miracle that would turn back the hands of time and undo the events of the past three and a half weeks, which took his source of livelihood from him.
Before now, Awam was not rich, but he was not poor, either. His business of selling mobile phones, MP3s and their accessories adequately took care of his family’s basic needs- which is more than can be said for his current state. Awam’s youngest child, Chiamaka, has already been withdrawn from a kindergarten she attended over his inability to afford the monthly N5,000 tuition. The education of his other two children would also have been affected if he had not paid their tuitions before his shop got burnt.
“It has not been easy for my family and I since the fire incident,” said the Transport Management graduate from the Federal University of Technology, Owerri, Imo State, with a note of frustration.
“Initially, I didn’t understand the extent of the damage until the reality dawned on me. I have a wife and three children to take care of. I have school fees, bills and house rent to pay.
“My last child has not been attending school because of the N5,000 we need to pay as her school fees for the month; she should be in school. What I lost in my shop ran into N5m. Now, I wake up in the morning, take my bath, dress up and then realise I have nowhere to go, so I come to my shop to look at it and pray for the best. When I get here every morning, I loiter about, moving here and there.”
On the day the incident occurred, a fuel-laden tanker skidded off the bridge and was engulfed in flames. The tanker, transporting 33,000 litres of petrol, was said to have fallen on a van parked under the bridge, spilling its content which ran through the drainage channels from Iyana-Ipaja Road to Adebanjo, Oremeji, Oki and Bakare Jafojo streets.
Governor Akinwunmi Ambode, during his visit to the site, directed his officials to furnish him with the report of the incident in 48 hours within which he would do something to assist the victims.
“I also come here to wait for Ambode’s promises,” Awam said, noting that no assistance had come from the government.
“I go through the papers everyday to see if Ambode said anything about us. Recently, when he came back here, I told him that we were still waiting. I noticed that he heard and nodded his head. If there is any help that the government can do, it should be done now before we start dying one after the other.
“Whatever aid that government gives will not return 100 per cent of what we have lost, but at least, it will keep us alive. This is more than 48 hours since the promise was made and nothing has been done to assist us.”
Each of the victims has lost something valuable to them and the feeling of uncertainty makes the situation more difficult for them to bear.A gloomy atmosphere still pervaded the area during out correspondent’s visit, over three weeks after the incident. The victims wore looks of hopelessness on their faces, and members of the public were sighted offering words of consolation to some of them.
Abiodun Idowu, a mass communication National Diploma student of the Moshood Abiola Polytechnic, Ogun State, lost everything he had in the fire except the clothes he had on at the time the fire started.
Idowu said his credentials, which he considered as his most valuable possession, also got burnt and that only a miracle would make him get the N80,000 needed for tuition.
He told Saturday PUNCH, “I feel very naked and my hope of returning to school is now very slim. I don’t even know where to start from. I need to find a way to recover my lost credentials and I don’t even have money to do that. All that I’m left with are the clothes I’m putting on.
“I don’t know what will happen tomorrow or the day after that. Life seems to be spinning out of control and I don’t know how to get things back to the way they were before. In fact without government’s help, we are in trouble.”
Also, a mobile telephone repairer, Mr. Agboola Olasumbo, who was also affected by the incident, said he has constantly had to deal with customers who found it hard to believe that their phones were burnt along with his shop.
Olasumbo said, “So apart from the fact that my things got burnt, another problem I have is that many of my customers’ phones and laptops were also included. Some of them have threatened to come back because they find it hard to believe that their gadgets had been burnt. I know I’ve told them the truth and besides, they saw things for themselves when they got here.”
But barely four days after the fire incident at Iyana-Ipaja, a similar incident involving another tanker transporting 33,000 litres of Automotive Gas Oil, also known as diesel, started a fire that razed no fewer than 34 houses and 70 shops in Idimu area of Lagos State in the early hours of Saturday.
And like Awam, Mr. Jude Okoroafor, has been visiting his shop at 267 Ejigbo Road at Idimu, daily, waiting on the government.
He said he had lost cosmetics and other goods worth millions of Naira to the incident.
Okoroafor, who has a wife and six children, said, “The state government promised to get back to us soon and I’ve been waiting to hear some good news. The shop was my only source of income and now that it is burnt, I’m at the mercy of God. So far, I’ve been living on God’s grace.
“I’ve been seeking help from my church and my family members and they have been assisting with the little they have but for how long will I do that? Some people have come here to take our passport photographs but we have not heard anything from them since then.
“We hope that the government will render some assistance to us soon because getting through the day without any meaningful income is like living in hell. We need help desperately.”
The destruction left in the wake of the fire incident affected the Olushi family house at Idimu junction.
One of the Olushi family members, Mrs. Fatima Aderounmu, who was an occupant of the house, has since moved to a state government relief camp at Igando area of Lagos in the absence of anywhere else to go.
Aderounmu said she also lost all her belongings in the fire incident and was lucky to have escaped alive.
“The incident occurred around midnight on Saturday, June 6 and we were all inside,” she said.
“The intensity of the fire was so much and we would have died inside the building if there was no exit route behind the house. We were able to get out through the back door.”
Credit: Kingsley Igbinosa
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