Boy, 16, dies starting generator.

A power generator burst into flames, killing a 16-year-old boy who was trying to start it.

Mubarak Aliyu Gidado struggled with flames that consumed his entire body within minutes behind his family home on Wednesday after evening prayers but was burnt extensively, his father Mohammed told journalists.

The SS3 student was to sit for his mathematics certificate exams the next day, but died Friday after a short hospital stay. “The fuel just ignited fire and the flames consumed him as he struggled," Mohammed said. “The doctors gave him a 50-50 chance but his conditioned worsen and he was placed on life support machine but his heart failed and he gave up.”

“As a father you can’t quantify grief of losing a child. It is God that gives and takes and we cannot question him and I thank God for Mubarak’s life. He was an obedient child. He wanted to study Computer Science but now he is no more, He was a good child. The whole Islamic School students and teachers came to my house to sympathise with me on learning of his death. May his soul rest in peace,” Mukhtar Gidado, uncle of the late Mubarak described his nephew as "a very brilliant child."

"He memorised 40 chapters of the Quran and he had a Quran in his pocket that day. He was a determined boy, respectful and obedient.”

Lawal Yusuf, head of Daar Communications office, Bauchi, and neighbour to the Gidado, said Mubarak’s death was most "sad, tragic."

"He was brilliant and always came first or second in his class. Even at his hospital bed he was reminding his father that he had Mathematics paper to write the next day."

Mubarak has since been buried according to Islamic rites