Just weeks after some militants
surrendered their arms to the governor of Imo State and pledged to
embrace peace through the ongoing windows of dialogue opened by the
presidency, the multi-million naira ultra-modern Imo State Specialist
Hospital, Owerri, was on Wednesday, September 27, 2016 razed.
Ex-militants in the state were fingered as the culprits.
The incident which occurred midday
consequently provoked pandemonium as both staff of the hospital and
residents of nearby buildings scampered for safety and quickly took to
their heels for fear of being consumed by the inferno.
Mostly affected by the fire include the
casualty department and the emergency unit as well as the theatre and
other sensitive sections.
Members of the public who quickly rushed
to the scene of the calamity to see things for themselves expressed
shock at the magnitude of the damage done by the fire. However, nobody
died in the inferno.
Mrs. Ngozi Njoku, the state commissioner
for health, when contacted on phone, declined comment, saying that she
was outside the state.
She, however, promised to rush back to the state in order to access the situation at the hospital.
Shedding light on the incident, Police
Public relations Officer, Andrew Enwerem (DSP), attributed it to a sharp
misunderstanding between some ex-militants of the state origin who, he
said, had just surrendered their arms at Government House, Owerri and
some members of the state Security Network.
According to him, in the scuffle that
ensued between the two within the vicinity of the Maria Assumpta
Roundabout one of the ex-militants was shot by the members of the
security network and was quickly rushed to the specialist hospital,
Umuguma for urgent medical attention.
However, frustrated by the delay of the
staff of the hospital on duty to attend to their colleague, the
aggrieved ex-militants went berserk and consequently set the hospital
complex ablaze.
Not done yet, Enwerem added that the
restive youths also trooped to the secretariat of the Imo Security
Network on Owerri-Aba Road and similarly burnt the complex to further
vent their anger against the shooting of their colleague.
He said that a detachment of men of the
state police command had been drafted to cordon off the two areas to
prevent hoodlums and miscreants from capitalising on the unfortunate
incidents to loot government property.
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