The unfortunate fire outbreak occurred on 12th March 2022, in Ekenta Square located in Okoko Item, around 1 a.m on that fateful day.
It was gathered that the fire started in one Late Okoronkwo Ajụ shop in Ekenta Okoko Item. Prior to the fire mishap, Shops were hired by suya and garden egg sellers.
Information from a reliable source revealed that the fire which started around 1 a.m on early hours of Saturday 12th March 2022, completely destroyed the entire shops.
The fire was said to took of a suya seller. Sympathisers believe that the fire was cause by careless handling of hot grill or candle in such a manner that it resulted to something terrible.
Other things consumed by the fire includes, two generator set with fuel, gallons of kerosene and other inflammables used in suya making.
The fire was so fierce that two full tankers of water failed to extinguished it.
One of thing God did which was great is that Okoko item traditional rulers return home on Friday evening for there meeting. They traditional rulers wasted no time in rising to the occasion, they came out early to deal with the matter knowing how volatile incidences like this could be, moreover with the inter ethnic coloration, Eze Jerry Akpala, Eze Sunday Ogbonna, nine traditional rulers. They traditional rulers started putting calls to Area commander, DPO, Military men etc, all of them arrived. Along with the chairman of Hausa people in Abia state, also Hausa traditional ruler for Abia state with so many of their people. A team of military men also came apparently in response to the unfounded allegations, making the round that the issue was IPOB related. The elder brother of the dead suya man, one Musa who was manning their suya table at the NYSC camp at the time of incident now came back and started alleging that he was informed that there was a gun shot before the fire started. Okoko item traditional rulers who were not comfortable with this baseless allegations, asked him to throw more light on his allegation. He thereafter claimed that one of his brother told him about the gun shot. Okoko item traditional rulers insisted that the person must be brought to openly say what he saw or heard immediately. As God may have it when the person came openly he emphatically contradicted Musa that was alleging foul play, by opening repudiating that claim. He unambigiously said he heard no gun shot and that he came out based on the alarm raised by our people. He equally confirmed that he saw our people battling with the fire incident, even that he saw two vericle with tank filled with water when he came out. At this point the tension that was already too high, started coming down, even though that didn't go down well with Mallams, who already have sufficient reasons to ignite an ethnic conflagration in item land. They are behind the scene scolded and properly rebuked their man that innocently changed their narrative. At this point the law enforcement agencies reasonably believed there might not be any foul play, regardless of the Mallam's wild allegation. There after chief Karibe Ojigwe former super Eagles player and honourable commissioner for sports Abia state, came in and added his own voice, he brought #100,000.00, which was used in dealing with issues arising from the unfortunate incident. Eze Jerry Akpala Igwe also brought #25,000, later a bus was arranged that conveyed the dead man to their cemetery in Lokpanta for burial. It must be noted that rumors of foul play on the incident is still very strong among NDE Hausa, our people need to be vigilant from now onwards.
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