The National Emergency Management Agency has disclosed that no fewer than 110 shops and 120 attachments were destroyed in the fire that rocked a spare parts market in the Idumota area of Lagos State on Saturday.
NEMA disclosed this in a statement on Monday while giving an update on the assessment operation it carried out after the fire incident.
TheNigerian Metro reported on Saturday that property worth millions of naira was destroyed in the fire.
The Permanent Secretary of the Lagos State Emergency Management Agency, Olufemi Oke-Osanyintolu, had in a statement on Saturday, said the fire occurred on Friday night.
Oke-Osanyintolu said a preliminary investigation showed that multiple buildings used as shops for the sale of car spare parts were razed.
The statement read, “On arrival of the LASEMA Response Teams at the incident scene by 2255hrs, it was discovered that multiple buildings used as shops for the sale of car spare parts were engulfed by fire at the aforementioned location.
“The immediate or remote causes of the fire incident had yet to be ascertained as of the time of writing this report. However, properties and goods worth hundreds of millions of naira were destroyed by the inferno.”
Meanwhile, in a statement on Monday, the agency disclosed that the assessment which was carried out alongside the market’s chairman, revealed the devastating impact.
The statement also corroborated that goods worth millions in naira were lost to the incident.
The statement read, “Officers of NEMA Lagos Territorial Office embarked on an assessment of the fire disaster at the Progressive Auto Article Dealers Market, Idumota.
“The fire incident, according to eyewitnesses, started around 2025 hours on November 29, 2024. The assessment team met with the market association chairman, Mr Okunowo Ajibola, who led the team around the market to ascertain the level of damage caused by the fire incident.
“The assessment revealed the devastating outcome of the inferno as about 110 shops and 120 attachments were destroyed and goods worth millions of naira were lost to the unfortunate fire incident.”
TheNigerian Metro recalled a similar incident on November 2, 2023, in the Ladipo plank market where at least 300 shops got destroyed after a fire accident.
The spokesperson for the Lagos State Fire Service, Amodu Shakiru, confirmed this to TheNigerian Metro in an exclusive interview.
According to Shakiru, the fire was not caused by an electrical surge as speculated because there was no power supply to the market hours before the incident and hours after it had commenced.
