Season of market fires

In Nigeria, the two known seasons are the dry and rainy. But it seems since the turn of the year, and especially within the last one month, a third has been raging. It seems to be a season of market fires    From Kano State to Kebbi, Adamawa, Kwara and Akwa Ibom states, fire had […]

In Nigeria, the two known seasons are the dry and rainy. But it seems since the turn of the year, and especially within the last one month, a third has been raging. It seems to be a season of market fires 
 
From Kano State to Kebbi, Adamawa, Kwara and Akwa Ibom states, fire had raged, destroying billions of naira of goods, cash and property, creating pathetic cases of grace to grass, and rendering millionaires paupers and beggars.
 But in the midst of these infernos, there has been one curious instance of defiance.      At the Muhammadu Abubakar Rimi market, popularly called the Sabon-Gari market in Kano State, which fired razed penultimate Friday, March 25, the cynosure is no longer the blackened rows of shops that fell to the inferno. By last Friday, crowd focus, Daily Trust on Sunday observed, was Shop C101.
 Hedged in between two shops which the fire had reduced to soot and charcoal, Shop C101 stands erect a mystery, untorched by the conflagration.
 Our reporter witnessed how awe-struck people who had trooped to the spot were as they stared at what they considered the miracle that Shop C101, which deals in mobile phones and accessories, was.
 The roofing sheets and doors of the shop were a sharp contrast to others around; whereas the caved-in roofs and doors of shops adjoining C101 had been rendered ugly dark by fire, the roof of C101 retains its white glitter in the puzzling admixture, and the door its straightness, both in defiance of the inferno.
 Shop C101 would, indeed, look a mystery in a blaze that raged so wide it razed 3,800 shops, according to the figure given by the Director-General of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Alhaji Sani Sidi.
  The Sabon-Gari market’s Sarkin Kasuwa, Alhaji Nafi’u Nuhu Indabo, estimated goods the fire destroyed at N2 trillion. Indabo said almost 75 per cent of the busiest area of the market was completely burnt down, and put preliminary assessment as showing that 28,000 temporary traders were affected by the disaster. It took three days to extinguish the fire.
  For Alhaji Abdulaziz Mai-Agogo, there would be no miracle to save him from a monumental loss. Alhaji Mai-Agogo, a dealer of wristwatches, cameras and digital midgets in the market was still tongue-tied when Daily Trust on Sunday sought his comments last week on the tragedy the fire had wrought on him.
 The distraught trader just waved our reporter over to his shop assistant, Dahiru Muhammad, to speak on his behalf. Muhammad said his boss lost goods worth a whopping N1 billion to the inferno, saying his two shops and four stores were completely burnt. “Nothing is removed from the shops and stores. All the goods stocked in them were destroyed by the fire,” the assistant lamented.
 Another affected trader, Hafizu Gimba, who deals in threads, said he lost N80 million cash and goods worth N100m to the fire. Gimba, who also spoke through his boy Qaribullah Isma’il, said the fire ruined his 12 shops fully stocked with goods.
 Gimba and Isma’il could only watch helplessly as the fire tore through their shops, reducing goods, cash and property to rubble. “There was nothing we could do to remove any item from the shops because the fire was too much for anyone to approach his shop to remove anything,” Gimba said.
 Dr. Mansur Nagoda, a former Chief Medical Director of the Murtala Muhammad Specialist Hospital, who also sells threads in the market, lost eight shops and goods worth N50m to the fire.
 Isma’ila Sani, a shoe dealer, who was also affected by the disaster, put his loss in the Sabon-Gari market fire incident at more than N15m, including N3m cash. Sani said his own three shops were burnt down, while his brothers, whose shops were also affected by the fire disaster, lost about N7m.
 The fire was believed to have been caused by a spark which came with the restoration of electricity to the market in the night.
 The Sabon-Gari fire started from the shoe section of the market by 11am that Friday and razed many blocks of shops, including A, B, C, L and D.
 The worst affected shops, Daily Trust on Sunday observed, were largely owned by dealers of cosmetics, eye glasses, perfumes, electronic, ceramics, shoes, house decorating items, wristwatches, consumables and jewelries.
 Daily Trust on Sunday gathered that the last time the market witnessed such a disaster was in 2007. The chairman, Sabon-Gari United Traders Association, Alhaji Alin Bagadaza, told Daily Trust on Sunday, that almost 95 per cent of the market was burnt down, adding, “we have never witnessed this kind of fire outbreak in the history of this market.”
 Alhaji Indabo was bothered about what the multiplier effects of the fire incident on many traders and businesses would be. He spoke of many traders he knew who lost sums ranging from N100m to N500m worth of goods to the inferno. He disclosed that some traders actually got overdrafts from their banks to purchase the goods.
 And only last weekend, on March 26, fire ravaged the Birnin Kebbi central market and consumed wares and properties worth hundreds of millions of naira.
  According to the interim report on the incident submitted to Governor Abubakar Atiku Bagudu by the state’s Commissioner for Land and Housing, Alhaji Abubakar Chika Ladan, the fire destroyed 2,170 temporary stalls, 324 permanent shops and properties.
 The Kebbi State government has constituted a committee and empowered it to find out the remote cause of the fire, provide relief measures to the traders and relocate them to a temporary site while working on how to reopen the market for trading activities.
The textile and foodstuff sections of the market were the worst hit by the fire. A prominent trader in the market, Alhaji Murtala Zauro, lost over 10 shops filled with exotic textile materials and N20m cash to the fire incident. It was gathered that the trader fainted but was revived at the Sir Yahaya Memorial Hospital.
  It was also a traumatic experience for another textile trader, Muhammed Agwada, who was yet to offload the consignment of goods brought to him from Kano when the fire incident happened. Both the goods and the truck were consumed by the fire. 
 Another trader who kept N7m cash in his shop was lucky to recover N3m. The fire burnt the remaining N4m cash and goods worth N15.
  A victim, Alhaji Sadiq Abubakar, narrated how he had just stocked his three shops with goods a few days before fire gutted the market. “I don’t know where to start again from,” he moaned.
 Another trader, Umar Gwandu, said he watched as fire consumed his goods. Gwandu said, “Many of us gathered here helplessly and watch our goods burn to ashes. We have lost all that we had.”
In Yola, Adamawa State, an electrical problem has also been fingered as causing a fire incident at the ancient Yola market in the Yola South local government area in January this year. The fire destroyed 815 shops.
 The Adamawa State chairman‎ of the Gamzaki Traders Union, Muhammad Ibrahim, disclosed that the fire destroyed more than N1bn worth of goods and property.
 The chairman of the traders union in Yola South, Ali Kachalla, contributed that 80 per cent of the market was consumed by the fire, lamenting that clustered arrangement of shops and narrowed routes impeded fire fighting efforts.
“This is the worst fire incident here that I can remember in 50 years,” Kachalla said.
 Both the state’s Deputy Governor, Martins Babale and the former Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mr. Nuhu Ribadu, who visited the scene described the fire outbreak as a national tragedy.
 Fielding questions from newsmen, Ribadu said, “This market is the centre of everything in our community. It is sad‎ that everything in this market is lost at this difficult time. These people have lost everything. They are entitled to be compensated. I hope this disaster will lead to construction of a modern market in Yola. This market has been there for the last 120 years. “
 In the Ipata-Oloje area of Ilorin, Kwara State, fire also razed a popular scrap market known as Jemgbe. The fire destroyed properties worth over N4m, about 80 scrap vehicles and many beverage shops, as estimated by the Kwara State president of the Motor Spare Parts Dealers Association, Alhaji Salaudeen Adeyi.
 The Kwara State Fire Service stated that 155 fire incidents were recorded between January and December 2015 in the state, while the Service has also recorded many this year, mostly affecting markets.
 In Ikom, Cross River State, big-time traders and shop owners have been turned into beggars and starters following an early morning fire outbreak. The fire was reported to have been ignited by a power surge in the area, which razed, at least, 40 well-stocked lock-up stalls in the main Ikom market.
 Wares worth millions of naira were reported to have been gutted by the fire, according to Assistant Director, David Akate, of the State Emergency Management Agency.
 The fire incident was reported to have occurred last Tuesday about 2am when owners of the shops and locales were fast asleep in their homes.
 Traders and shop owners the Daily Trust on Sunday spoke with lamented that the fire had consumed within seconds what they described as their “entire lives”.
 A victim, Augustine Chinedu, in tears, said he has lost all his goods worth millions of naira. Chinedu urged government to urgently come to his aid.
 Another victim, Miss Agbor Okey, a fashion designer, said the incident has put she and her family “under trauma” as what they lost to the fire was their only means of livelihood.
 Thirty three-year-old Akpet James deals in second-hand clothings. Fire consumed the entire four bales he had taken delivery of a few days before the fire incident.
 “Where shall I run to now?” he asked no one in particular. “How do I start all over again? If I had not ordered for the four bales, it would have been okay. But all my savings went for the payment of the bales.”