From wedding altar to the grave: Sad end of young couple consumed in Lagos fire

As you are reading this, the undertakers would either be lowering their bodies into the six feet under the ground or must have finished their job and be heading home to allow the grief-stricken families, friends and well-wishers to bewail their ugly fate and bear the indelible mark of such a telling loss.

For what remains of Dozie Okoye, a staff of Zenith Bank, Ladipo Oluwole branch in Ikeja, Lagos and Joan Gusiora, his beautiful wife, a nurse with a promising career in the United States would have been closed finally in the bowels of the red earth, a final story that awaits all mortals.

Just a month ago, on Saturday, February 22, the atmosphere at the Momoh Gardens, 18, Wole Olateju Crescent, Lekki Phase 1, was virtually on fire with celebration as the same families, friends and well-wishers gathered to add colour to their wedding reception, shortly after exchanging rings and marriage vows at the Saint Jude’s Anglican Church on Ademola Ajasa Street, Omole Phase 1, Ikeja.

But now, on this same Saturday, March 22, it would be another kind of music at the Okoye family, Agulu Village, Anaocha Local Government Area of Anambra State where both hailed. That is where the two bodies would be sealed, after that of the young lady, who would have returned to her duty post in the US last week Friday, would have visited her own home in her father’s compound at Enugu-Ukwu, Njikoka Local Government.

How did this happen? Only the couple who are no more could have given the full details. But from what could be pieced together by family members and friends, it indicates that they were two out of the four fatal victims of the Otedola Bridge gas explosion and subsequent fire of March 11.

They were said to be returning home when they were caught in the inferno, having been completely trapped as the car in which they were travelling was right behind the tanker that exploded and therefore had no chance of escaping as the incident must have happened in split seconds.

The little account suggests that the couples’ phones suddenly went off and nobody could reach them, setting off apprehension amongst their friends who eventually tracked them at the at the Burns Centre in Gbagada and Yaba Mortuary, where their charred remains were finally found on the evening of Wednesday February 25 after days of frantic searching.

In fact, it was said that the first and only means of identification that eventually gave a clue to what must have happened to the couple, was when the search party finally discovered their car, which was found among the burnt vehicles at the scene of the incident, through the registration number.

“The wife was due to go back to her base (USA) last Friday. I don’t have many details. Dozie started work that particular Tuesday after his wedding. The wife left her father’s house at about 4.00pm to meet him for Dozie to pick her on his way back from work. That was the last anybody heard from them.

“Until next morning when Dozie could not report at the office as he normally comes on time, that was when his colleagues started calling his line without success. At this point they got in contact with his relation to know if there was any information about him. That was how the search started. With news of the tanker explosion the previous day, they extended the search to the scene of the explosion where his burnt car was found,” a family member said.

Expectedly, family, friends and close associates of the couple have remained in mourning ever since, with the parents totally inconsolable as they contemplate how a life which began on a promising note for the youngsters who looked into their future with such great hope on that February 22, when they took their vow before the world could end on such a sad note in a swift, sudden and painful way.

– Whirlwindnews