The chairman of the market, Arinze Akupue, who spoke about the incident, said he had to call people around the market, to help put out the fire, after he was alerted by a security officer in the market.
He said it took the intervention of the Azikiwe Divisional Police Headquarters to rescue the personnel of fire service. “The security man just called me that he’s seeing flames of fire in the market. And I asked him which of the area, he told me. Immediately I started calling persons around. “I drove down from my house to the park, where we have the Rivers state fire service. They told me they cannot do anything. In fact they were the people that directed me to Federal Fire Service, I was so disappointed that they could not respond.