By Precious Oluwole

The speaker, Ondo State House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. Olamide Oladiji has expressed his displeasure over the inferno which happened at Ondo East Local Government Secretariat, Bolorunduro and Ondo State Emergency Medical Services Agency (ODEMSA) in Bolorunduro.

The Speaker who visited the scenes of the inferno on Thursday revealed that the secretariat storey building is the image of the local government and it has been burnt down.

“We are going to direct the appropriate authority to carry out a proper investigation. The security of the secretariat has been arrested and we will take the necessary step and we will ensure that we monitor the situation”.

To our people, this local government belong to all of us, it is our property, when we begin to set our property on fire, it means that is the beginning of the end, it means we don’t value what we have. We should all be careful and value what we have” .

Hon. Abiola Makinde, representing Ondo East and West in the federal constituency described the incidence as unusual. “We are so unhappy with what happened, the local government and the community is affected, this is a very terrible thing to have happened because Ondo East is a very peaceful place”.

“For any reason or whatsoever, we do not expect anyone to have done this and we hope that the law enforcement agencies will take action and find those who are behind this terrible act and bring them to justice because the local government is expecting development and not destruction and we hope that this will be resolved soon”.

According to Ondo East local government chairman, Hon. Olawale Akinkuotu, “at about 6:30 Am this morning I had a call in respect of a fire incident at the local government secretariat. I called the DPO immediately to the scene and he confirmed that if was a serious fire out break and immediately went to the fire service at Ondo to mobilize them here and we got here at about 8:30 am by the time we got here, virtually 80 percent of this building has been razed down”.

“It was a very shocking occurrence. Basically, there shouldn’t be any fire outbreak here, because we don’t have electricity in Ondo East local government for the past 15 years, so thr issue of electrical fire is totally out of it and because of the cost of diesel, we have not power our generator for the past 3 months, so, I foresee hidden masterminded by some unscrupulous sentiment”.

“This is the only thing that we can show case in Ondo East local government. It is very unfortunate. The area commander was here, as well as the DPO and some other security agencies and I’ve appealed to them that I want a thorough investigation to be carried out because we must unravel the cause of this situation, it’s too unfortunate for Ondo East local government to experience this, the local government is not under any investigation or any auditing. I don’t know why people can be so callous to believe that until they perpetrate evil, that’s when they can excel”.

Hon. Wale Akinlosotu, commissioner for culture and tourism and former chairman, Ondo East local government, described the act as very disheartening, stressing that he people behind must be brought to book as such should not be tolerated.

Nurse Olawunmi Orogbemi, the nurse in charge of Ondo State Emergency Medical Services Agency (ODEMSA), Ondo East revealed that the incident happened on Sunday, July 2nd, 2023 at around 1:42 Am. “I was called that one of the ambulance is on fire but I told the person that he find help to put off the fire”.

“When I got here early on Monday morning, I met these two ambulances burnt. We have another hilux, a part of it got burnt as well, but it was quickly taken away from the scene. The fire affected few part of the building. We got the ambulances in 2014 but we haven’t used them in the last 3 years, there’s no petrol or battery in each of the ambulances. The case has been reported to the police station and to the head office”.

Offices affected at Ondo East Local Government Secretariat includes: Chairman’s office, Vice chairman’s office and ALGON office