Beauty queen loses home, crown, certificates to strange fire

These are not pleasant days for the second runner-up of the
Miss Fashion Nigeria 2014/2015 pageant, Chinaza Violet
Chikeluba, who lost her crown to an early morning fire on
January 14, 2015, which gutted her family home in Agulu,
Anambra State.
For Chikeluba, the fire incident was definitely not a welcome
way to begin the year, and understandably left her wishing
that she had not witnessed it. As it turned out, her aged
mother was the only one at home when the fire started.
Efforts to put out the fire failed and their two-bedroom family
house in Agulu, Anambra State was razed to the ground.
Chikeluba had shared the house with her mother, after
relocating home just to be close to her, following the
completion of her studies at Delta State University, Abraka,
(DELSU) where she read Education (Economics).
Recalling the painful incident, she told Sunday Sun: “I was
attending a health programme at Awka. Early that morning I
got a call from my cousin that our family house was on fire.
Immediately, I took a bus to our village in Agulu in Anambra
State. When I got there, I saw a lot of people trying to quench
the fire. My mother was just crying and lamenting. I was
staying with her, but I went for a two-week programme. That
Wednesday was the third day of the programme. I left the
house on the Sunday of that week. It was only my aged
mother that was at home.
“Later on when I asked her what really happened, she said
that early that morning when she woke up, she wanted to go
for morning mass. She lit a candle as she was preparing for
church. She does not even use candle; I don’t know why she
lit a candle that morning. Sometimes, if I lit candle, she would
be angry with me. I think it is a satanic plot or something. I
don’t really know.”
Continuing the sad tale, Chikeluba said: “She wanted to get
her chaplet and prayer book from under her pillow. Just then,
the candle fell from her hand and rolled under the under the
mattress. Afrer picking it up, she did not know that the
mattress had caught fire and was burning. But when she
became aware of it, my mother began to call for help, but the
gate to our house had not yet been opened. This delayed the
neighbours that came around to help. In the confusion to open
the gate, the raging fire did much damage. Some people even
had to jump over the fence in order to help her quench the
fire.
“All the efforts they made to quench the fire were in vain
because everything got burnt. Everything – including all my
certificates from primary school to university, my crown as
Miss Fashion Nigeria (Tourism), my creative wears that I use
in modeling, everything was lost to the inferno.”
After graduating from DELSU in 2011 and completing the
national youth service, Chikeluba took up a teaching
appointment in a private school, while honing her craft as a
model.
“I was teaching in a private school and also modeling before I
decided to come home to stay with my mother. I was then
looking for another job in Awka so that I could be close to her.
I am so devastated by the fire incident. I want help from the
public. My mother is a poor widow. She has been suffering; I
was even the one trying to make life meaningful for her. We
don’t really have any hope right now. We don’t know who to
run to. I am appealing to kind-hearted Nigerians to please
come to our aid, whatever they can afford to give. So that we
can start to rebuild the house because before you know it
now, the rain will come back.
“My mother has been blaming herself for the whole thing. She
has refused to go inside. She has been sleeping outside. The
incident is really frustrating to her. We are squatting with
some neighbours, but my mother is still sleeping outside.”
Interestingly, Chikeluba’s modeling career began while she
was in school and she was crowned as Miss Campus 2010.
When she featured in the Miss Fashion Nigeria pageant, she
represented Anambra State.
Until the fire incident happened, the distraught queen said she
had planned to go on visitations during the Valentine season
as part of her assignments as the reigning queen of the
tourism component of the Miss Fashion Nigeria Pageant.
On this sad outcome, Chikeliuba said: “It has really affected
me because I am like an only child. My elder sister is married.
The little money I was making I was using to care for my
mother. Everything we had in the house was burnt. I was
trying to see how I could take care of my mother. The thing
has really drained my purse. I had plans to celebrate this
valentine at the orphanage, though it is still on my mind.”