Loud sounds of sirens from the Federal and State Fire Services filled the air in Sokoto metropolis that early morning. For many, such sounds do not come to them as a surprise.
Though, nearly everybody in the state understands better when it’s called Shagari Market. This is because, after being burnt twice in 1970, the market was rebuilt by Julius Berger in 1967 when Alhaji Shehu Usman Shagari was the chairman of Sokoto Urban Development Authority. However, the peace of the market was troubled that fateful day as shop owners, businessmen and women, watched their property burnt to ashes in disbelief.
This source said that it was the waste fire that got into the transformer and ignited a spark. This claim was debunked by head of operations the Sokoto State Fire Service, Tanimu Bawa. Narrating how the presence of fire service personnel was initially marred, Tanimu said the traders blocked everywhere in brazen attempts to rescue their belongings without allowing his men access to the market for more than an hour.
A large percentage of those whose shops and source of livelihood were destroyed by the fire however expressed fears over possible repeat of the skewed compensation as it used to be the trend. Registering his disbelief over the incident, a trader, Alhaji Kabiru Liman, said he took the ordeal in good fate, as according to him, nothing will ever happen unless ordained by Allah.
“I have three shops in the Sokoto Central Market. I sell curtain pipes and tailoring materials. I have three shops with one of them being double. I have been doing business in this market for over 25 years. “And even if the compensation committee is to give you anything, it will be adding more pains to you. Some of my friends whose goods were worth over N20 million in the 2006 fire episode died of heart attack seeing that they were given a mere hundred thousand as compensation,” he alleged.