DEATH AT MIDNIGHT

Before Alhaji Razaq Zubair, a septuagenarian, went to bed on that fateful penultimate Wednesday, he did his rou­tine check on the sprawling premises that houses his two-storey building on 12/14Alhaji Razaq Street, Egbeda, La­gos.
Being a devout Muslim, he had earlier observed his Shafui Witri (evening prayer) without any premonition that it would be his last. And for a man whose safety and security alertness was legendary, Alhaji’s strict rules had often pitted him against his tenants, who considered some of his regulations as outrageous.

For instance, in Alhaji’s kingdom, gas stoves were not allowed and candles were forbidden. But in spite of such stringent rules and regulations, the tenants had learnt to abide by Alhaji’s laws and they lived together happily before they were mortally separated by the mystery fire that gutted Alhaji Razaq’s apartment on the second floor of the building recently. The fire, the cause of which could not be detected as at when Expdonaloaded visited the affected building, also destroyed property worth millions of naira.
It was an irony that Alhaji Razaq was eventually killed by the same fire he was wary of. According to Emeka Okenwa, a tenant, the night of the incident was like any other. Darkness enveloped the yard and the surroundings since electricity supply to the area was rare. Emeka, a graduate of Chemical Engineering from the Federal University of Technology (FUTO), Owerri, Imo State, told Expdonaloaded.blogspot.com that he sat outside the building to enjoy the night breeze. Lost in thoughts over what the future held for him after attending a job interview earlier in the day, he was jolted back to reality by the shouts of fire! fire! by people in the neighbouring compound. Initially, his thinking was that the fire outbreak was in one of the adjoining houses until he heard an explosion apparently caused by the air conditioning unit in the landlord’s sitting room.
At that point, he ran inside the house to alert his co-tenants that the house was on fire. “Immediately, I ran upstairs to the landlord’s apartment. On getting there, I met the door locked. I started banging on the door, hoping that somebody would respond. One of the boys living with him, however, struggled to open the door. By the time I entered the sitting room, the whole place was filled with a thick smoke. I made straight to the room of the landlord’s son, which was also full of smoke and was able to drag him out of the apartment; he was almost unconscious. The landlord’s son, Azeez by name, could only manage to utter the words:‘Baba is inside, Baba is inside.’
“I made another effort to locate where the landlord was lying only to be shaken by another explosion. This time, the blast came from the cylinder of the fridge in the deceased’s dining section. It was at that point I gave up on making any further move. Then, I ran downstairs to meet other neighbours who had started shouting for help and calling the men of the fire service on phone.”post by expdonaloaded.blogspot.com
According to Emeka, he was able to salvage some documents, belonging to the landlord’s son before fire fighters later arrived at the building about 11.45 pm. Since he was more familiar with the building, Emeka said he had to follow them inside the building to give them directions on how they could possibly rescue the landlord, who was trapped inside. Even though the fire fighters put out the fire eventually, the landlord’s body could still not be located that night, owing to the thick smoke and the smouldering debris of the structure, which had fallen inside the apartment.
He said it was not until the next morning during another search for Alhaji Razaq that his body was found in a corner in the sitting room. “I think he might have been suffocated by the smoke after he struggled to come out of his bedroom,” Emeka told Expdonaloaded.blogspot.com sombrely.
Alhaji was buried according to Islamic rites the following day. In his graveside sermon during the burial, the officiating Imam, Alhaji Abdul Azeez, stressed that life and its many struggles were ephemeral. He described Alhaji Razaq as a devout Muslim who gave his all for the advancement of the work of Allah. Admonishing the gathering to learn from Alhaji Razaq’s life, Abdul Azeez reminded them that among other things over which man had no control was that man cannot determine when, where and how he would die. In addition, no man can predetermine where an individual will be buried, he noted. Therefore, he admonished the sympathisers to amend their ways, noting that no one knows the hour or minute when one’s soul would be required of them.
As the children performed the dust-to-dust rite, he urged them to emulate the good deeds of their father. Meanwhile, none of the bereaved family members, including the children, obliged to speak with Daily Sun as they were still overtaken by grief. Rather, one of the deceased’s children directed this reporter to Emeka, who witnessed the incident.
Emeka, who said he was born and raised in the compound, described his late landlord as someone who was very safety-cautious. He said the only way anyone would draw the ire of Alhaji was when one flouted any of his tenancy regulations. Outside that, Emeka noted, the deceased was practically a nice person.
For Obinna Ndunaga, another tenant, Alhaji would be remembered for his fatherly care and God-fearing disposition. Ndunaga, who was putting together his belongings evacuated from the house when Expdonaloaded met him, described the incident as unfortunate. He said he had learnt to understand his late landlord, adding, “as long as you didn’t break any of his rules, Alhaji would be at peace with you.” He, however, appealed to well-meaning Nigerians to come to his aid since he had to seek another accommodation, pending the time the house would be made habitable again.