the buzz within Tejuosho Shopping Complex that afternoon was vibrant. Many traders at the modern Lagos market frantically wooed intending buyers to fatten their sales. On the ground floor of the three-storey building, Mr Charles Nzeribe was also catching up on the frenzy, haggling with three young women in his boutique. His face lit up with pleasure as the transactions ended happily with two of the customers.
Fortunately, the fire brigade located on the market premises raced to his rescue. The fire was quickly put out before it spread to consume over N1m goods in his stock. Before emergency responders from the Lagos State Fire Service arrived at the scene, fabric materials and the complex had been consumed by the inferno that raged till the next day.
But the feat wasn’t achieved overnight. The market was destroyed by fire some years back after which the state government, an engineering firm and a commercial bank, in a public-private partnership arrangement, reconstructed it into a mega shopping plaza. He added, “On two occasions that we had small fires, we used fire extinguishers to put them out before firefighters from the Lagos State Fire Service came. The first fire occurred in 2016 when there was a gas explosion from one of the food vendors in the market. We used our fire extinguishers to douse it.
“Human factors constitute 95 per cent of fire incidents in most markets. If we ask traders not to keep combustible materials within the markets, many of them won’t listen. We have been having a running battle with them. We have had instances where food vendors forgot to put off their cooking stoves. It was security men who saw it at night. We identified that vendor and penalised her.
“I have never witnessed any fire here before and to a great extent, I can say my shop is safe. Even though the rent is quite expensive, I am pleased that my goods are safe,” she said. “All effort to put out the fire was not successful because of its intensity. When we got here, we called fire service but no response,” he recalled.
“Over 500 lock-up shops were gutted by the fire on Iweka Street Market leading to Ochanja and Menax markets which were also affected,” an eyewitness, Johnson Damien, who spoke with The PUNCH bemoaned, adding that firefighters from the neighbouring Delta State came to rescue the situation. Although the agencies did not categorise the nature of the fires, they confirmed that fires involving markets and other commercial establishments constituted a considerable percentage, running into billions of naira.
Statistics showed that N885.31m worth of property got razed in Kano State in 2017, with 116 lives lost. In the following year, N1.1bn valuables were destroyed by fires which claimed 149 lives. The loss was put at N678.8m in 2019 with 111 deaths. “In the coming days, the relevant state government agencies and NEMA will move out together to sensitise traders.”
The acting Fire Prevention Officer, Lagos State Fire Service, Mr Adebayo Ezekiel, told our correspondent that the importance of having fire extinguishers in markets formed the major part of the agency’s sensitisation programme. Ezekiel stated that the agency might make it mandatory for houses and markets to have fire extinguishers, adding that officials would teach people how to use the device “as soon as they buy it.”
“Micro economy makes up the macro unit. So if there is job loss all over the country, of course in the macro unit it will impact the GDP. The GDP will be low,” she remarked.
This balogun market na Not again
please, minimize the way you tell some unnecessary stories at this period. Many would actually thought this occurred somewhere.