Fire Burns Down A Hostel In UNN: Where Was The Fire Service?

It was a bitter moment for students in Okeke Female hostel of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. A conflagration hit the  3^rd floor of Okeke hostel. The fire started at about 7:12 PM. Students living in nearby hostels alerted the security who in turn called the fire service, however the story didn’t end there.

The fire service arrived at about 7:37PM conveyed by a hillux security car blaring siren. They reached the hostel immediately and tackled the problem, however the fire was burning the two wings of the hostel moving from one room to another through the roof. They tried moving round but got their vehicle stuck in a drain. They tried pulling it out but to no avail. The fire resumed, hitting the rooms fiercely. The fie service could only bring a truck, and the truck was stuck. After much hassle, the truck was pulled out. It took about 30minutes to pull it out.

The fire burnt was still moving slowly into different rooms in the ‘series’ aided by several gas cookers that blasted like bombs and got eyewitness like me jerking from as far as 120meters! Other things that got burnt was clothes, books, documents, kerosene stoves, beds etc.

The pitiful part of it is that girls were crying, and placing calls to their friends and parents at home. This got many people sorrowful, the police was there, security men were there, lecturers were there, students were there, fire fighters had already gone probably for good or to reinforce.

Statistically speaking, the whole 17 rooms on the left wing of the floor burnt to ashes, so also the other wing making it a total of 34 rooms wasted! A room houses 4 students, so technically speaking 136 students lost their bed spaces! The school has failed to provide rooms to her massive student due to lack of rooms, now she has lost 34 allocated rooms. 

It’s a pity for a great institution like the University of Nigeria to treat her students this way. This part of the problem with Nigeria and indeed other developing countries. However, Aluta Continua!