Culled From Punch:
Losing one child can be traumatic and painful to most
parents and losing three at the same time is certainly unimaginable.
Thus, Mr. Raheem Ameen, 53, and his wife, Maryam, 38, have
yet to recover from the shock and the trauma they went through penultimate
Friday, when they lost their three girls in a fire incident.
To them, it was still a bad dream, which they believed, they
would wake up from and find out it was not a reality.
But then, the little girls, Christiana, 12; Feranmi, 8 and
Pelumi, 6, have passed on in a painful death that any parent would never wish
for his/her child.
The incident, which claimed the lives of the children,
happened in the early hours of Friday, around 2:30am, around the Bungalow end
of Jakande Estate, Oke Afa, Isolo, Lagos, where their mother, Maryam, was
operating a salon and provision store in a property belonging to her husband.
Raheem. Photo: Tunde Ajaja
Eyewitness accounts had said that the fire was caused by the
action of some policemen who were allegedly pursuing a Volkswagen LT bus loaded
with kegs of petrol. It was gathered that in his bid to escape from the police,
the driver of the LT bus ran into a danfo bus parked in front of Maryam’s shop.
Because of the inflammable nature of petrol, the collision
resulted in fire and the spillage of the fuel across the premises made the fire
to spread to the shop where the three children were sleeping, burning them to
death, whilst destroying property worth millions of naira. About eight shops
were burnt, including the two buses and a Toyota Liteace utility vehicle.
There was an uneasy calm at the Ejigbo (Lagos) residence of
the bereaved when our correspondent visited their apartment earlier in the
week. The situation appeared more pitiable as the couple wept uncontrollably.
In company of relatives and family friends, the Raheems were
all tears, defying all the consolation and words of advice their visitors could
muster, while they (visitors) also took turns to talk about the children and
often ended it with tears.
Christiana
Struggling to appear calm and composed as she made to
explain her side of the story to Saturday Punch, she burst into tears again.
Not even her husband could help, as he also went through rounds of tears,
saying he had left everything to God, whom he described as the giver and taker
of lives.
After much persuasion, her explanation as to what happened,
even though riddled with long pause and occasional tears, provided an insight
into how her kids lost their lives untimely.
Maryam said she closed from her shop around 11pm the night
the incident happened when she finished plaiting her last customer’s hair.
Since it was already late, the hairdresser said she couldn’t go home with her
three children when it wasn’t certain that she would quickly get a bus home. Thus,
she had to leave the children in the room behind her shop, where she used to
sleep with them.
She explained that she left the key with them and that they
were even watching a movie and in a very good mood when she left them and went
home to prepare food that her husband could use to break his fast and the
children could eat from the next morning.
Pelumi and Feranmi
She said, “I was in my salon with my attendant on Thursday
evening, and we finished plaiting the last hair around 10:30pm. I left the
place 10:45pm, because it was late, I didn’t want to go with them. It would
have been too risky and we might not get a bus on time. My husband was fasting,
so I left and they were very lively. They were even playing, watching film
while I was leaving. I didn’t know that was the last I would see of them.
“We used to sleep together in that house, and that night was
the second time they would sleep there alone. The room behind the shop is like
a house on its own with toilet and bathroom and even kitchen. Sometimes, I
spend 24 hours in the house. Sometimes, we sleep in Ejigbo and go to the shop
to bathe and eat. Sometimes, when I’m not there, they take care of themselves,
cook and take care of the shop. So, it’s like our second home.”
Her voice faded out into tears as she struggled to continue,
saying, “That Friday morning, around 4am when my husband was about going out
for prayers, someone called him and said our shop was on fire, so I started
screaming about my children but the person said it was only the provision store
that was on fire.
“There was a shop between the provision store and the salon.
I kept telling the person to go and wake the children, not knowing they were
already burning. When I got there, the first place I went was the room where
they slept, but the fire was so fierce. I kept shouting, screaming about my
children, but I was told the children were rescued and had been taken to the
police station. Somebody even told me that the person who rescued them was
demanding for N1m, and I said no problem.
“I was there when the three fire fighting trucks came, but
suddenly, I heard someone saying, ‘Where is the mother of those children, we
will beat her to death because the children are dead’. That was the last thing
I heard. The next time I woke up, I found myself on the hospital bed, crying
and asking about my children.”
Relatives who were present said that the couple had not been
able to have a good sleep since the incident happened and that Maryam had been
having nightmares. “Sometimes, she would wake up in the night, shouting the
names of her children repeatedly,” one of the relatives said.
Maryam continued, “Christiana was to collect her report card
last Wednesday but now she is no more. Her father, who happens to be my
ex-husband is also very pained but there is nothing we can do. Each time I see
children of their ages, I remember my children. Even if I give birth to three
other children today, they won’t grow immediately to be like the ones I lost.
If it was just the property that got burnt I wouldn’t mind, but my children,
how do I get them back,” she said faintly as she went into another round of
tears.
“If I were to be there, it wouldn’t have happened. I had
planned for their summer class but now they are no more. I didn’t even see
their corpse. If not for those people carrying fuel and what happened, I won’t
be in this crisis. People now see me as a wicked mother, without knowing what
happened,” she added.
Apparently worried and unsettled by the misinformation about
the circumstances surrounding the death of her children, she said, “I won’t
really blame those who have been accusing me. Some people even said I went to a
man-friend’s house. I worked at Nigerian Red Cross Motherless Babies Home as
baby attendant for 11 years before I resigned. So, I value children because
I’ve been too used to them.
“I wish there is an opportunity to clarify this issue openly
so people will not make things worse for me. People already gave me two images.
That my children got burnt to death and that I went to a man’s house. That is
not true. Please help me tell them.”
On his part, Raheem said those who said she locked the children
up in the shop and went home were unfair. He said, “She has a shop there and
they sleep there sometimes when she closes late. Everything they need is there.
The difference is just that it is behind the shop. In fact, it has its own
entrance at the back.
“I was fasting then, and it’s the usual six days fasting
after Ramadan, so she came home to prepare food for me. She worked late that
Thursday, and because of the risk of moving about with three children at that
time of the night, she came alone.
“It was around 4am when I woke up to go and pray that I
received a call. The noise at the background was too much, so I dropped it. So,
her phone rang too, and the person told her. We got there after 4am. The key
was with the children, so, we were given the impression that the children had
been rescued, not knowing they were inside. That was the last I remembered,
until I woke up in the hospital. We were discharged just on Tuesday.
“I still saw them that very day, the youngest of them,
Pelumi, even told me to buy her gala (sausage). I used to give them anything
they needed because I love them. But I didn’t know that would be the end.
“It was when I became conscious that I realised that I
fainted and sustained injury on my head. But God understands. I had already
lost hope. I thought that was the end, because I have been hypertensive but
thank God for the people around us.”
According to them, Christiana had promised to celebrate her
12th birthday on August 21 with her group (choir) in the church, but now she is
no more. Beyond the property they lost, which they said was worth N4m, the loss
of their children is one they might live with for the rest of time.
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