Candle Fire Razes Beauty Queen’s Home, Cancels Valentine’s Plan

It is a sad, sad beginning of the year for model, sec­ond runner-up of the Miss Fashion Nigeria 2014/2015 pageant and teacher, Chinaza Violet Chikeluba, who  recently lost her home, crown and certificates  to a early morning candle light fire that razed her home in Anambra.

Chikeluba’s mod­eling career began while she was in
school at Delta State University, Abraka (DELSU) and she was crowned as Miss Campus 2010. She featured in the
Miss Fashion Nigeria pageant where she represented Anambra State.

Until the fire incident that gut her house, 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. This may however not be possible as because of the outcome of the unfortunate incident. She said, “It has really affected me…The little mon­ey I was making I
was using to care for my mother. Everything we had in the house was
burnt…The thing has really drained my purse.”

The Anambra born beauty queen and graduate of Education (Economics) from (DELSU) was  devastated to say the least when she received a  call that her two-bedroom home which she shared with her mother was on fire.

Recalling the painful incident, she told the Sunday Sun  that  she got a call that morning from her cousin that her house was on fire. Chikeluba who was attending a two-week health programme at Awka (which was on  its third day)
immediately left for her village at Agulu in Anambra
state.

On this unfortunate day, it was only her aged mother that was at home. The beauty queen on what really led to the fire outbreak explained that, “…  early that morning when she (Chikeluba’s mother) 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.”

 Chikeluba further 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. After picking it up, she did not know that the mattress had caught fire and was burning”. 

When she became aware of it,  was too late to reach out for help as the gate of the house was locked  and the neighbours could not enter into the house to help. While some  had to jump over the fence in order to help quench the fire, the raging fire had done far too much damage.

Miss Fashion Nigeria (Tourism) on counting her  lost lamented that she lost everything, her certificates (from primary to university), her crown as Miss Fashion Nigeria (Tourism), creative wears amidst other things.

Chikeluba cried out to meaning Nigerians to come to her rescue. In her own words, “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 us. So that we can start to rebuild the house because before you know it now, the rain will come back”.

The family is currently squatting with neighbours. Chikeluba’s mother sleeps outside as she can’t stop blaming herself for the whole scenario.