By NICHOLAS OBISIKE

Gov. Alex Otti of Abia has ordered the relocation of motor parks along Milverton Avenue, Aba to a more conducive area.

The decision to relocate the bus terminals followed the upsurge in fire outbreaks in the markets and some other business facilities in Aba.

This is contained in a statement on Thursday from Mr Kazie Uko, the Chief Press Secretary to the governor and made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Aba.

The governor announced the relocation of the Milverton parks during an inspection of the Chisco Transport Company (CTC) located in the area and was recently gutted by fire.

Otti added that the relocation was to allow ease in human and vehicular movements in the area.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that vehicles and property estimated at hundreds of millions of naira were destroyed in a fire incident that engulfed the Chisco Transport terminus at Milverton in Aba.

Otti said that the Chisco Park and other parks that occupied the one-kilometre Milverton Street were a recipe for disaster.

He also said the government would look at other parks at Osisioma and Port Harcourt Road with more space to relocate the parks at Milverton Road.

He described the fire incident at the Chisco office as unfortunate and commended the men of the state fire service for mobilizing and working hard to put out the fire.

Otti expressed dismay over incessant fire cases in Aba in the last couple of weeks insisting that there were things that were not being done right.

He urged the people and business owners to be more careful to prevent future fire outbreaks.

The statement read in part: “I think it is time we relocated the parks to a more spacious place, we cannot have everybody clustering in a place; this is a recipe for disaster.

“And I know that there are motor parks around Osisioma and part of Port-Harcourt Road that have more space.

“We are going to have a look at those parks in Osisioma and Port-Harcourt Road and ensure that we relocate a lot of these bus terminals in Milverton to those parks so that it can be easy for us to move if there is any incident.

“I am happy that the Fire Service mobilized and worked very hard to stop the fire. If you noticed, in the last few weeks, there have been several fire incidents in Aba.

“That tells me that there are things we have been doing that we are not doing well. In the first instance, every facility must have fire extinguishers and we are going to enforce it from next week.”

He directed that every business facility in the state should have fire extinguishers installed for easy containment of fire outbreaks saying that enforcement would begin next week

He said that more fire fighting trucks and other fire equipment would be procured to complement existing fire trucks in Aba.

In an interview, Chief Uche Wogu, the Transition Committee Chairman of Aba South Local Government Area, described the incident as unfortunate and thanked God that no lives were lost.

He commended the governor as well as the men of the state fire service for rising to the occasion.

“We thank God that no lives were lost, thank God that Abia is working, and thank God that we have a governor that is very sensitive to the plight of the people,” he said.

(NAN)

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