Dayo Johnson, Akure

IF the mysterious fire that razed a private hospital, Universal Specialist Medical Clinic, situated at Araromi area of Akure, Ondo State capital, and snuffed life out of the owner, a former Acting Medical Director of the Federal Medical Centre (FMC), Owo, Dr David Oguntuase, is called a horrifying Christmas gift to his family, it is definitely not an understatement.

The deceased worked as a consultant Pediatrician at the FMC, Owo.

The tragedy came barely a week after a gas explosion wreaked havoc in Akure, injuring eight people including a pregnant woman a three-year-old girl while no fewer that 50 shops and houses were consumed and properties worth millions of naira destroyed. The state government has, however, promised to compensate genuine owners of the razed shops and houses at the Arakale area of the state

•The charred remains of the hospital

But Oguntuase’s death in the fire has left many questions unanswered.

Tongues are wagging that the deceased doctor might have been assassinated in his office before his hospital was torched to cover up the act.

His colleagues in the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) are alleging foul play over the incident.

“The intensity of the fire that razed the building was so much than what something that could have been caused by candle light”, they said.

They alleged that some enemies of progress may have been responsible for the dastardly act against Oguntuase.

The doctor’s neighbours at Araromi where the hospital is located wondered why he could not run out of the building when the fire started.

They said there was more than meets the eye in the fire.

An eye witness who saw Oguntuase’s corpse before the police came to remove it said he met face down and burnt beyond recognition.

His intestines, the source said, were out by the side of his stomach but seemed he was stabbed before the body was burned by fire.

The source said that the legs, separated from the body, were burnt. The Ondo State Police Command has vowed to get to the root of the incident.

Speaking with Sunday Vanguard, the Public Relations Officer of the Command, Wole Ogodo, said the cause of the fire that consumed the doctor would be thoroughly investigated.

Said Ogodo: “The doctor was consumed in an inferno in his clinic and we have commenced our investigation while his corpse has be taken to the morgue for autopsy.”

•Dr. Oguntuase’s hospital after the inferno

The wife of the late doctor, Wuraola, according to the police PRO, reported the incident at a police station in Akure.

Sympathizers who trooped to the scene when the fire was quenched could not hold back their tears as they watched Oguntuase’s remains being removed from the razed building.

An eye witness account said candle light may have caught the window blind of the room the doctor was sleeping in and spread to other parts of the hospital.

It was said that the oxygen used to revive patients kept in cylinder in the room where the deceased was sleeping may have aided the fire.

The ensuing explosion reportedly attracted neighbours who rushed to the scene but could not save the situation because the fire was much.

Speaking to Sunday Vanguard, one of the deceased’s neighbours, Ademola Adejare, said he heard distress calls around 2.am and that, on coming out, he found that the hospital was on fire.

Ademola said while many sympathisers were using water to put out the fire, some ran to the fire brigade station for assistance.

According to him, because “of the intensity of the fire, aided by gas explosion, we could not save the doctor”.

Another witness said Oguntuase had called his wife around 7 o’clock that night to say she should expect him home the next morning.

Sunday Vanguard learnt that the deceased doctor informed his nurses and staff to go home and celebrate Christmas with their families since patients too had refused to visit the hospital because of the festivity.

A source said it was the doctor that was alone in the hospital when the fire incident started.