Lagos market fire victims lament losses

Forum 9 years ago

Lagos market fire victims lament losses

Lamentation has been the lot of traders at Aguda market in Surulere, La­gos, whose shops were gutted by fire on Tuesday night.

Over 20 shops and goods worth millions of naira were consumed in the inferno, which was sparked off by a faulty electrical wiring at about 10 pm on the fateful night.

Recounting what happened that night, the chief security officer of the market, who refused to give out his name toldSunday Sunthat before the incident happened, there had been power outage.

“Around 9:45pm power supply was restored. Not long after, we began to perceive the smell of burning wire. We traced the smell to the source, and tried our best to break into the shop but we could not until the fire service came and put it off at about 1 am.”

One of the victims of the fire di­saster, Faith, said she had closed for the day that evening and gone home when she was called at 10pm and informed that her shop had been gutted by fire, alongside several others. Faith lamented that the fire consumed everything in her shop.
[ads4]
Speaking with a trembling voice, she said: “I have a shop here. I don’t even know what to say, they called me around 10pm that Aguda Mar­ket had been gutted by fire and I came. I did not even pick anything out of the shop. My generator, air-conditioner, machines, every­thing were burnt. I could not even pick a pin; they said it was electrical fault that caused it. My shop was a hairdressing salon.”
When asked to give an estimate of the loss she incurred, she said: “I can’t just sit and calculate the worth of this loss. I bought the generator at N160,000 not too long ago. I had a 2-horsepower air-conditioner, all sorts of machines and equip­ment. How many dryers will I even count? Is it the money in the shop that I want to talk about? Just two days ago, I went to check a shop nearby where I wanted to move, not even knowing that all this would happen. All I have in my life, in­cluding my house wares, were in that shop. What I am left with now is the phone I have in hand. I even wanted to jump into the fire so I will know everything is over for me. What will I do now?”
Another victim, Stanley Oke­chukwu said: “This is not the first time this would happen. It occurred about three years ago and even this year, it occurred but not so much. I sell ladies wears. The goods in my shop before the fire were worth about N1.8m. I really want the government to come to our res­cue, nothing else. It is not all about re-building the shops.”
Speaking on the unfortunate in­cident, the Iyaloja of the market ex­pressed worries over the recurring fire outbreak in the market, saying: “This is the fourth time the market has been set ablaze, and we cannot just say who is responsible for this. The government is yet to allocate shops to prospective owners in the new one because it has just been completed.”
When the Baale of the communi­ty, Chief Okanlawon Brown, spoke withSunday Sun, he narrated his account of what happened during the fire outbreak and proffered solu­tions on the way forward. He said: “When I got here, only four shops were burning. The security men on duty and the youths of the commu­nity made efforts to put out the fire. I made sure the rightful owners of the shops were the ones salvaging the items in their shops to prevent looting. “We want the government to help us. The market itself should be enlarged because the people liv­ing in Aguda are more than the size of the market. Fire keeps gutting the market. Some people even took mi­cro-credit loans to stock their shops and they must payback. We call on the government to come to the aid of the people because the downfall of a man sometimes results to the end of his life. If you go there your­self, you will see that millions of naira were lost, because most trad­ers in the affected place sell clothes and jewelries.”
Wale, a tailor who had a shop in the market also agonized over his loss, recalling how he learnt about the incident: “I left my shop around 7pm and I was called around 1am. I lost the whole shop, and a lot of clothes belonging to customers. I have to go and get another shop elsewhere because I cannot afford to just sit down, and this is Decem­ber coming.”
Notwithstanding their huge loss­es, the traders still gave thanks to God that the fire disaster did not claim their lives. Sounding philo­sophical, the Babaloja of the mar­ket, Musibau Ajao said: “We just thank God that despite the big loss of properties, no life was lost.”