OANDO FILLING STATION MANAGER TURNS HERO AFTER CONFRONTING FIRE !!!

At about mid day, 5 minutes to 12, on the 15th of July 2015. Fire came out of thin air at Oando filling Station along Herbert Macaulay road Ebute metta axis.

Residents and business men fled with speed because just a stone throw is another active filling station belonging to Mobil.

In an interview with the manager turn Hero, Mr Saheed Waheed who was observing the ongoing Ramadan fasting and prayer. He confessed that Allah was at work.

Mr saheed said he was just concluding meetings with Auditors when he heard loud shout;

fire!!! fire!!! fire!!!

He rushed out of his office only to be greeted by the fire and a couple of helpless fuel attendant struggling to enable the fire extinguishers. The manager, Mr Saheed found his way beside the fire to reach the struggling attendant, and hammered the head of the extinguisher on the ground, pulled the pin and the extinguisher was immediately enabled, he sprayed at the fire and in his words;

As i spray the extinguisher the fire went back and returned towards me with more flames but i continued to spray, all of a sudden, more people joined me in spraying and after about 10 minutes, we killed the fire.

I thank God because he did not fail me, when i saw the fire, the first thing that came to my mind was; i am fasting, nothing can go wrong and i thank Allah nothing went wrong. i also thank our colleagues that stood by us, we heard some people ran as far away as Yaba while we fought the fire, but these ones are here, cleaning and making the place look like nothing happened.


What caused the fire?

According to eye witnessed, they said it was after a funny looking man bought fuel and drove away, flames from the exhaust of his vehicle ignited fire and he did not look back or stop.

I see Fire Service truck outside, did they in any way contribute to the stoppage of the fire?

To be honest, we had stopped the fire 30 minutes before they arrived. If we had given the fire so much time, we won't be able to stand within this premises to run this interview. But i thank God because they have improved slightly over time to what it was 10years ago, however, i am convinced they can do more. With their siren, it should not take them 7 minutes.

We interviewed an attendant who prefers not to be mentioned.

He said he was preparing to run, but when he saw manager confronting the fire, he was forced to remember that there are more fire extinguishers and he went for one and others joined too. He further emphasized that the only reason he and others joined manager was because manager was a good and understanding guy, he repeated that the manager, mr Saheed is somebody we  all have a soft spot for so leaving him to confront the fire alone did not feel normal, hence we found ourselves fighting fires.

Story as reported by
Douglas Agu