Fire guts popular Minna market

Fire on Monday night gutted the Abdulkadir Kure Ultra Modern Market in Minna, the Niger State capital, destroying goods worth millions of naira despite prompt action to contain it.
Speaking to The Eagle Online, the Officer-in-Charge, Market Fire Service Section, Myaki Umar, said the fire fighters arrived the scene almost immediately as they are stationed in the market.
Umar said: “Immediately we were contacted, we alerted the Bosso office to come with water tank and we were able to curtail the inferno even though there are inflammable items among the goods.”
The Eagle Online spoke to an eyewitness, Alar Owerri, who said he lives close to the market.
Owerri confirmed that the started around 9pm.
He said operatives of the State Fire service curtailed it almost immediately and that the cause of the fire could not be ascertained.
He, however, said the suspicion was that an unquenched coal fire kept in one of the shops by a woman who sells fried yam and cake beans triggered the fire.
One of the shop owners who gave her name as Yemisi Bolaji, said: “I just bought my goods over the weekend.
“I sell clay pots, traditional medicines and I am supposed to supply people who requested and paid for these goods.
“My goods are worth almost N500,000.
I am so confused now.
“I need help because some people have paid for the goods destroyed in the fire.”
Another shop owner, simply called Abubakar, said: “My goods are more than N4 million.
“Everything is lost because I left the money of the goods I sold last week and on Monday in the shop.
“They are burnt too.”
Others too lamented their losses.
When our Correspondent met with the head of the market, Alhaji Ado Garba, he said after finishing his 8pm prayers, he got a call from the security men guarding the market about few minutes to 9pm and he immediately alerted the fire service men who came in swiftly.
Garba said the cause of the fire cannot be ascertained now until thorough investigations are carried out.
However, he disclosed that the cause of the fire can not be far-fetched from either stove or unquenched coal locked up in one of the shops.
The Head of Relief and Rehabilitation of the Niger State Emergency Management Agency, Mallam Salihu Garba, who was at the scene for a first hand glimpse, said the Agency got the news about the outbreak at about 10pm on Monday and rushed down to monitor evacuation, coordinate search and rescue activities.
Garba added that all the security outfit were on ground.
He said: “Thank God we were able to curtail the fire incidence and so far only 15 shops in Block J-06 were badly affected.
“We cannot ascertain the cause of the fire now.
“There was no electric light connected to the block and so electric power upsurge is ruled out.
“We are still trying to investigate a particular source.
“There is a particular shop that we learnt they fry foods.
“We are suspecting that maybe the fire was not properly put off before close of market.”
Garba assured those affected that the State Governor, Abubakar Sani Bello, gave instructions to the SEMA to visit the scene, access the level of damage, and make immediate intervention recommendations to the government.