By Bashir Mohammed
Kano
A large female hostel at Government Girls Secondary School, Jogana, in Kano was Sunday night gutted by what eyewitnesses described as “mysterious fire” which led to the death of seven female students with scores sustaining various degrees of injury.
An eyewitness said the inferno affected the large female hostel at about 7.30pm on Sunday.
He told our correspondent that at the time the incident happened, almost all the students were in the hostel, saying the cause of the fire could not be attributed to electrical fault as there was no electricity at the time.
He added that the seven students were burnt beyond recognition, while those who were lucky to survive sustained various degrees of injury.
When blueprint visited the premises of the school yesterday, students were seen trooping out of the school on the orders of the Ministry of Education.
When contacted, a senior administration officer in the school declined comments, saying that he could not to speak to the press unless he got clearance from the Ministry of Education.
Meanwhile, the deputy governor, Prof. Hafiz Abubakar, who is also the supervising Commissioner for Education, Science and Technology, has confirmed that seven female students were burnt to ashes while 25 others were currently receiving treatment at various hospitals in Kano.
He said the fire still remained a mystery as its cause could not be ascertained by anybody, adding that looking at the gravity of the lives lost and the number of female students hospitalised.
Blueprint learnt that the fire was put out through the combined efforts of men of the state Fire Service in Gezawa town and a private Chinese company operating in the area.