Traders Lose Goods To Midnight Fire

By Tayo Lewis and Olamide Balogun - 23.02.2008

TRADERS around Felele junction on the Molete-Challenge road, Ibadan, yesterday lost millions of naira to a fire that razed about 15 shops.

Saturday Tribune investigation revealed that the inferno started around 10.40 p.m. and raged till midnight. The burnt shops were still smouldering at about 11:00am when Saturday Tribune visited the area.

An eyewitness, one Mr. Bode Arole, and some neighbours said that efforts to put out the fire by neighbours were unsuccessful.

Officials of the State Fire Service office, which incidentally is located just about 500 metres away from the scene of the fire, when contacted, claimed they had no water.

They were said to have then contacted the fire service office at the Agodi State Secretariat, several kilometres away. No one could say what caused the fire.

A trader, who identified herself as Mrs. Idowu Sokeneye said that she lost goods worth over half a million naira, she said substantial part of the money was a loan.

Another trader, Alhaja Omowunmi Odubola seemed worst hit. She said she just bought goods worth about two million of naira. She had just started bussiness in the area in October when she invested about N8m into buying goods such as jewellery, textile, bags and shoes.

She called on government to come to their aid as millions of naira had been lost to the inferno.

‘You know the situation of things in the country. To rebuild the shops and get money to restart business is not easy.

We need the government to assist us’, she told ST weeping.