Day Nyanya’s ‘Mammy Market’ got reduced to ashes

Reliable sources disclosed to Weekly Trust that the incident claimed a life and injured some occupants of the illegally-erected structure who were running away for dear lives while others sustained injuries while trying to secure their property. Residents disclosed that the area is the abode of commercial sex workers who have turned the place into […]

Reliable sources disclosed to Weekly Trust that the incident claimed a life and injured some occupants of the illegally-erected structure who were running away for dear lives while others sustained injuries while trying to secure their property. Residents disclosed that the area is the abode of commercial sex workers who have turned the place into residential areas where they carry out all domestic activities. Residents equally added that the area is characterised by drunkenness and immoral activities day and night.

Information received from one Sanusi, a hawker of assorted tools, disclosed that on Thursday evening, many of the sex workers bought different items including expensive musical gadgets in preparation for their journey home for celebration of Christmas and the New Year. The hawker said the market has two parts — one part was constructed before the other and that was the main structure.

“The fire started at the main structure from where it spread to the other structure. Sex workers and men drank heavily that night in anticipation of Christmas day,” he said. Martins said the fire started around 2a.m., and that no one could tell how it happened, adding that a sex worker was trapped in her room.

A passerby, Ngozi Alexander, added that the woman may have been too drunk to realise what was happening or possibly could not find her way out when the place was engulfed by smoke.  Others said she may have slept too late.

Residents said fire caught the place around 2 o’clock in the morning but was aided by kegs of petrol and contents of generators owned by some sex workers. No resident in the neighbourhood of the incident knew the deceased’s name or where she came from because they are usually attracted to the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) by friends.

The Divisional Police Officer (DPO) of Mararaba Command, R. E. Sylvester, who was at the scene by twilight, said the fire started around 3.45 a.m. on December 24, but that no one could tell how it happened. He disclosed the name of the deceased as Ngoma Abedkye, a female from Gboko in Benue State.

He said after the incident, people who knew the deceased well made arrangements and conveyed the body to her village. One Paul, a civil servant resident in Nyanya, disclosed that on a certain occasion, he sat by a sex worker who received a phone call from her mother and daughter who are living in her village. She lied to them that she was in the FCT supplying items to some customers and would soon return home. They should therefore manage whatever she sent to them.

Paul further informed Weekly Trust that after the woman had told her chapters of lies, she turned to him and said, “These people do not know that life is difficult everywhere. I always send money to them but they still insist on seeing me. Who will feed us if I should remain in the village with them,” she asked.

Paul equally disclosed how a commercial sex worker lied to her townsman that she was living with her sister in the FCT, adding that the preparation for marriage was terminated when a boyfriend of the lady told the young man that she was a prostitute resident at a hotel in Mararaba.

Paul also said that when such incidents happen, it becomes difficult for parents of those people to appear because they never expected their daughters in such places and commended the efforts of the police in situations like this.

In an interaction with men who commenced erection of structures at the scene days after the incident, one of them who would not disclose his name, said he does not reside in the area. Interrupting the discussion, one of three women resident behind a butcher called the young man and warned him sternly. “Akuya, if you tell him that the place was set on fire, you will have to tell him who set it on fire; otherwise, you will be taken to Keffi prison,” she warned. The woman in question equally threatened to strip herself naked if Weekly Trust did not stop the investigation.