By Najib Sani
Bauchi
Residents of Unguwar Bauchi area in the Bauchi metropolis have condemned the ‘incompetence and lackadaisical attitude’ exhibited by the state fire service personnel in the attempt to rescue an eight-year-old girl, Amira Adamu, who fell into an open well on Tuesday.
Eyewitnesses said the girl was playing with her mates around 5: 00 pm near the public well when she suddenly fell inside and that the people in the area promptly informed the fire service directorate on phone to come to her aid “because they could not enter into the well due to its depth.”
They said although the fire officers responded promptly, they failed to rescue the girl as the five of them were scared to reach the bottom of the well, complaining that it was too deep and it had big holes on its walls, thereby leaving the child to die helplessly.
A neighbour to the deceased, Ubaidullah A. Umar, told our correspondent that one of the on lookers had to volunteer to dive into the well before the corpse of the girl was brought out.
He said if the officers had acted well, the child might not have been rescued, calling on the government to recruit only competent people “and not the quacks” to work in such critical sector.
Blueprint gathered that the man who volunteered to rescue the deceased was given the sum of N500 by the men of the fire service as an appreciation of his gallantry, while the parents, Malam Adamu and Malama Rabiatu, could not talk to our correspondent at the time of filing in this report.