Tears And Ashes: Widow Cries Out For Help After Fire Destroys Her Only Shelter

When a distraught woman, Mrs Gloria Unazoi, and her husband, Engineer Nicolas Unazoi, built their house at No. 3 Oluwatobi Ilori Close in Obawole area of Lagos State, little did they know that some other structures would be built in the area that would make their living a nightmare.

But a fuel station built in her area has now made her homeless and Unazoi, a widow, is crying for justice, seeking compensation over the damages done to her property by a fire outbreak from the fuel station on Kay Farm Road, Obawole, Iju, a suburb of Lagos under Ifako-Ijaiye Local Government Area.

She was not the only victim of the fire. Her tenants were not left out as their property were also consumed by the raging fire within a twinkle of an eye.

Unazoi, a mother of four, says she has yet to recover from the trauma of witnessing the devastating effect of the fire that emanated from a filling station, OPTIMA Oil Limited, which occurred about a month ago.

‘‘I’m depressed as a result of the fire incident,’’ she told LEADERSHIP Weekend in an interview.

The woman in her mid-60s, along with her tenant, Chinyere Lillian Adelabu, in separate interviews narrated the sad encounter of the evening on the fateful Wednesday, June 11, 2025, to LEADERSHIP Weekend.

Though no life was lost in the incident, properties and cars worth millions of naira were damaged, including the fuel station.

Her situation seemed to have been worsened by the inability or the lack of capacity of the Lagos State Fire Service and the alleged lack of empathy from the owner of the fuel and gas station, Hon Rasheed Olanrewaju Makinde, where the fire emanated from.

LEADERSHIP crew, who visited the neighbourhood and scene of the fire accident at Kay Farm Road, on Wednesday, saw first-hand the debris and charred petrol station facing Kay Farm Road.

The fire affected different houses, more importantly, the duplex of Madam Unazoi, which shares the same fence with the fuel station.

Recounting what transpired on the day, the owner of Tracy Bookshop said she was cooking when she heard a loud blast outside her building.

“I was making my meal for the night and the deafening noise came from outside my building. I had to stop what I was cooking. A minute or two after, one of my tenants called me, shouting ‘fire! fire!! F
fire!!!’ I tried to come out of the kitchen, but I couldn’t because of the fire, smoke, and the heat.

‘‘I didn’t know exactly how to escape because my kitchen faced the fence of the fuel station. At this time, neighbours had run out and called me to run out as well. I managed to, and we had to face the opposite side, as it’s a close, and I was helped to climb the fence, wearing my pyjamas, and was not fully covered.

“My tenant, Lillian Chinyere Adelabu who just came from a trip in Europe, had a worse encounter as all her belongings in the living room and in the kitchen and personal belongings like her certificates and that of her children, were consumed by the raging fire on that day- her apartment, upstairs was directly facing the fuel station.

‘’All the things she just got back from Europe, with all the things she bought, everything was burnt. She escaped but fainted. She later spent three days in the hospital. Now she lives at a hotel because her rooms and apartment are yet to be repaired,” the widow narrated.

The victim, Ms Adelabu, who is a mother of three and Customer Care Representative of a telecommunication company, said she is still in a panic mood, alleging that the owner of the station, Hon Makinde, and his people insulted her and her landlord.

She said Makinde wanted to give them a paltry N3 million to take care of their entire loss.

“I don’t know why a fuel station should be located this close to a residential building. When it happened (the fire), I was scared. I didn’t have high blood pressure. But when that thing happened, when I saw everything I had laboured for all my years go down within a second, in a single day, my blood pressure shot up. I fainted and spent three days in the hospital. Thank God, I didn’t die or sustain major injuries.

‘‘I need to be compensated. I am a single mother with three kids. I have been on my own for a long time. I go out daily, and go to work at 5am. I come back at 2am the following morning. I’m always the last to leave the office. So I need Hon Makinde to compensate me,” says Ms Adelabu.

CDA Wades In

Our correspondent gathered that elders in the area have waded into the issue following the engagement of a lawyer by Mrs Unazoi.

It was gathered that the management of the petrol station had initially sold a false narrative claiming that the fire emanated from the duplex, but when she debunked the claim and cried out, explaining her side of the story, the issue was resolved in her favour.

Speaking to our correspondent on this matter, Mrs Unazoi noted that in 2023, there was also a fire outbreak at the station, and it seemed the lessons had not been learnt.

She also disclosed that having lived in the area for 26 years and having raised her four children with her husband, who died six years ago, the widow said she and her late husband had earlier rejected the plan to situate a fuel station right beside their house.

Her late husband, who was a former staff member of the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), fought the plan to situate the fuel station years ago, but was said to have been persuaded by the community leaders and co-landlords who explained that the fuel station would attract development to the community.

“I told people how we got here, how we were already living here 23 years before he (the owner of the fuel station) came. My husband fought it, but the community betrayed my husband. Nobody supported him. My husband later fell sick, and before you know it, he died. I was in and out of the Lagoon Hospital at the ICU. I was even planning to move out of the area when my husband died.

“I later renovated and spent millions of naira on our property.

“Initially, the owner of the fuel station was doing quick fixes and repairs of my building after the fire incident, which I did not like, as many things were damaged, including the conduit. You can see the fence, the marks, and the disintegration signs are there. Quickly, they did it, and he was trying to lobby me to do the quick fix, but I refused.

“So I told my lawyer to write to him. My lawyer wrote to him asking for N10million for the whole repairs. This may have caused him to retrace his steps and he is now seeking ways to pacify us. Initially, I wasn’t picking up his call because of his actions,” Unazoi recounted.

For Ms Adelabu, the cost of damage to her abode is estimated at N17million.

“So please, I need him to come and compensate me, not with that mystery N3million that they were telling me. A lot of things were damaged – my kids’ phone in that room, two iPhones, a laptop, a fridge, a freezer, and ACs. My clothing, everything, my shoes, my bags, my purses, my handbags, my daughter’s clothing, her certificates, everything gone,” the mother of three lamented.

When LEADERSHIP Weekend reached out to the owner of Optima Oil Limited, Makinde, a two-time member of Lagos State House of Assembly under Ifako-Ijaiye Constituency, he alleged that the fire incident was an arson, which he said was still a mystery to him alleging complicity on the part of the tanker driver and the boy who was to offload the premium motor spirit.

Makinde insisted that as a town planner, “there is nothing wrong with siting a fuel station within residential areas, as that is the norm everywhere and abroad too.

“The landlady is being mischievous as I had made moves to repair the damaged areas before now, but she rebuffed it, claiming that different areas that were not affected should be repaired too.

‘’I am a professional and also at a loss. Her lawyer tried to calm her down but she was fuming. I would like you to come back to the house in two weeks and check the repairs made if I have not done the needful. The fire outbreak was not deliberate as it’s still a puzzle to me. I have tried to make peace, but she was just being heady. Let’s see the outcome of the work to be done in two weeks, and you can assess it if we have not repaired what was affected,” he said.