In 2002, nine-year-old Ayinke Oluwakemi was asked to buy diesel to power her mother’s grinding machine. When she came back, her mother asked her to pour some of the diesel into the machine. But hardly had she poured any drop into the machine than the gallon containing the diesel caught fire and exploded. Immediately the fire touched the dress she was wearing, she fell on the floor and started yelling and screaming as the fire rolled through her back.
In an attempt to rescue her, her sister rushed to where she was shrieking in pain, but the fire caught her body as well. Sadly, they were the only ones at home, as their mother was not within the premises. But she heard their screams where she was and rushed down, only to discover that the fire had severely burnt Oluwakemi’s hand and back, and caught the eyes, hands and legs of her elder sister.
“As I saw them, I rushed out in tears to alert people in our neighbourhood. When people came in, they helped me put out the fire and rushed both of them to Catholic Hospital, Oluyoro in Oke-Offa. When we got there, the nurses on duty said they could not admit them because there was no bed on which they can be laid for treatment. Then, we took them away to another private hospital here in Ibadan which admitted and treated them,” Oluwakemi’s mother explained.
After some weeks, Oluwakemi’s elder sister recovered, but she did not. But after a while, she got well too. Her burnt back dried up and she returned to school. She started and completed her secondary education too. After leaving secondary school, she learnt a skill and later got married. She did not feel any pain either on her back or leg until 2019, when part two of the agony and misery she felt during the 2002 fire incident resurfaced. A mother of two, the fair and lanky lady, now needs a surgery before she can experience peace again.
Explaining how the whole trauma resurfaced in 2019, her mother, who could not hold back tears while narrating her ordeal to Sunday Tribune, said: “She told me that late in 2019, she saw a tear on the affected part of her back. But I asked her not to pull or try to remove the tear to prevent it from degenerating into a sore again. But as the tear often make it difficult for her to wear her pant; she used a small scissor to cut it. And this became the beginning of another trouble for us, because the affected part became a big sore which we have been nursing since then.
“We have been to many private hospitals since then and have spent unaccountable sum of money just to make her have peace. But all our efforts have been fruitless. We finally took her to the University College Teaching Hospital, Ibadan a few months ago, where they said we should provide the sum of N625,000 for her surgery. But we have spent all we have and her husband has left her.To make it worse, she can no longer walk. That is why I came here to beg Nigerians for help,” the aged woman added, in a tone laden with frustration.
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