Residents of Akankan Area, Ede, Osun State, are mourning the devastating loss of a Customs officer, Tijani Kabiru, his wife, and four of their children, following a fire that engulfed their residence in the early hours of Monday.
The blaze, which started around 3 a.m., claimed the lives of Kabiru, a Customs officer attached to the Oyo/Osun Command, his wife, and four children aged between 3 and 10 years. A 13-year-old boy, one of the officer’s children, miraculously escaped the inferno.
An eyewitness, identified as Kola, told Punch that firefighters from Ede Fire Station were alerted after smoke was detected, but the fire had already consumed much of the house before they arrived.
He recounted:
“I can’t say when the fire started, but we observed smoke at about 3 a.m. The response time of the firemen was not bad, but the house had been badly affected before the fire could be subdued. Kabiru, his wife, and four children were already burnt to death. But one of the children escaped.”
In a statement by the Osun State Fire Service spokesperson, Ibraheem Adekunle, and signed by the Director of the Service, Olaniyi Alimi, the remains of the deceased were handed over to officers of the Nigeria Police Force.
The statement detailed:
“We received a distress call at 3:21 a.m. and promptly dispatched a team from the Ede Zonal Command, supported by a backup team from the Fire Service Headquarters in Abere.
The incident occurred on Customs Tijani Kabiru Road, named after the deceased officer. He and his wife, in their 40s, perished alongside four of their children. The estimated loss from the inferno is around ₦200 million, while property worth ₦500 million was saved.”
