Tuesday, November 5, was a day many, especially traders who lost all they had laboured for for years, won’t forget in a hurry. Balogun Market on Lagos Island, known for its wide selection of colourful Nigerian and imported fabrics and school bags, was on fire on that day. According to eyewitnesses, the inferno was sparked by an electrical fault on Brasas Plaza on its fifth floor. Incidentally, people were on the roof of the burning building at the time as firefighters battled the flames with little success. Yet, the traders were thankful to God that human losses were minimal.

Our correspondents, who were at the scene of the incident a day after, captured the agonies of some of the victims, who lost hundreds of millions to the unfortunate inferno. Many of them were inconsolable as they count their losses. One of such people is Peter Chima, who had a huge stock of school bags before the incident.

The 36-year-old from Anambra State lost over N25 million worth of goods. He had received a trailer load of his merchandises a day before the incident. Chima had also taken a loan from one of the new generation banks, which he used as a bait to enable him to take more goods from his suppliers. This arrangement, according to him, was facilitated by his former boss, who he said, had a robust relationship with the suppliers he had done business with for years.

He lost not only his live savings but the loan as well as the overstock taken on trust from his suppliers. Chima and some of his friends were at the fifth floor when they heard a bang at the fourth floor. When they looked down, they noticed that a huge chunk of the wall had pulled in allowing the fire to pierce through the third floor. The building was a six-floor complex.

They were trying to salvage all they could as they were throwing down the bags to no one in particular. At that time there was huge smoke that was already choking them to the point of suffocating. Their efforts were too little, too late.

Chima said: “The fire started from the building next to ours. Initially, we didn’t realise the intensity of the inferno until people started yelling at us to rush down for our safety. Most of us were on the fifth floor where we had our warehouses. But as others hurried down, the thought of losing everything I had laboured for if the fire got to where we were crossed my mind and I became confused.

“In that confusion, I begged one of my friends and a Mallam with us at the time to help me to see what we could salvage from my warehouse. But, when we noticed that the fire had entered into the building we were from both the ground and third floor, my friend and Mallam left me and found a way to escape before it engulfed the entire building. “I was left alone as I was determined to save my goods. When the fire got to the fourth floor the shout of ‘leave your goods and save your live’ became louder.

At that point I had to jump from the top of the building where I was but unfortunately I slammed my head against the wall on the second floor and managed to roll down.

“The injury was so severe that I passed out only to be resurrected from the nearby health centre I was rushed to after some hours. The Lagos State fire service officials on ground tried but their efforts came a bit late. However, death would have been a better option, as I do not know how to approach my bankers and suppliers? I’m finished; I need help urgently.”

Like Chima, his boss, who he was an apprentice to, Sylvester, is also said to have lost over N45 million worth of goods to the fire. His wife, who reluctantly spoke with one of our reporters, identified herself simply as Amarachi, from Anambra State. She told our reporter that theirs was a family business she ran with her husband

She said: “We have been here for years selling school bags. We supply others as well as retail to our numerous customers here in Balogun and from outside the state. The incident that just happened was terrible that I don’t even know where or how to tell this sordid story. It’s a total wreck on us and it will only take His grace to find our feet again. “We were not on ground at the time but when our sales boys called on the telephone to alert us, they said the fire was in our neighbour’s building and had not got to ours. They assured us that everything was okay as the fire might not eventually escalate to engulf other buildings. As we were contemplating on what to do, the second call came and we could hear people crying at the background.

“As they were stammering to let us know what had just happened, a neighbour’s call came through breaking the news we were not prepared to hear. He simply said: ‘Madam, tell Oga that his goods are gone; your warehouse has been burnt down’. “Immediately, my husband collapsed. But for the quick intervention of those around, the story would have been different. Since the unfortunate incident, he has not summoned the courage to come to see things for himself. As you can see, those rubbles there (pointing to the huge debris), are our goods and those of others. We had goods on the third and fourth floor with our large warehouse on the fifth floor. Ours was a monumenta loss.” However, Chima and Amarachi, were not the only ones agonising.

Former chairman, Bag Sellers Association of Nigeria, Balogun Market branch, Ignatius Akunedoziobi, also had his shop on the burnt building. Like the two traders above, Akunedoziobi claimed to have lost goods worth N15 million in the inferno.

“The estimate of what I lost here can be put at N15 million, it could be more. Until we take stock of everything I may not be able to give the exact worth of what we lost here. It’s massive. Some of us had just been advanced loan facilities to restock for Christmas, which is our usual practice here. We had hoped, like we are used to, to liquidate those loans after the coming yuletide. The estimate of our total loss here runs into several millions, some of us may never recover from this shock.

“But, our greatest fear now, is for the government not to contemplate taking over the burnt buildings as being speculated. The governor was here but we don’t know his thinking for now. We have both Igbos and Yorubas selling different kinds of wares in this market.

Our plea now is for the government to come to our aid to ameliorate our sufferings; we can’t bear it all alone,” he said with tears rolling down his cheeks. Another trader, who gave his name as Onwan Uche, from Enugu State, equally lost about N10 million worth of his merchandise. A container full of wares offloaded into his warehouse three days before the fire incident. He occupied two big shops in the second floor in the building and sold school bags as well.

His loss was minimal because he was able to salvage some of his imports with the help of some Good Samaritans. His greatest regret was the loss of a Mobile Police officer, who was helping to make sure no one was hurt.

“He died trying to protect us from dying. I have not been able to sleep since the incident as the trauma and thought of death continue to create fear in me,” Uche said. Motunrayo Adeneye, who lost her three shops filled with fabrics, told Saturday Telegraph that the fire incident might not be ordinary as, according to her, it has become one incident too many.

This is not the first time we are experiencing fire outbreak here, she said. “It happened in 2007 and 2018. It is so painful that this vicinity is always going up in flames. “I sell clothes and drinks as well. Everything I had laboured for, for so many years was gone just within a twinkle of an eye. The only way I think the government can help us is by reconstructing the place. A friend of mine, who also sells clothes, Mrs Ademola, received her stock two days ago (Monday).

Please tell the governor and others who matter in his government to come to our aid as we can’t bear this alone. If nothing is done urgently to help us, many might die by suicide soon. Another shop owner in the burnt building, Folasayo Adebanjo, was asleep when the fire started.

“But for God I would have been dead by now as I was deep at sleep at the time the commotion started. When my friends came to drag me out of the building I didn’t realise the enormity of what was happening. I thank God it’s only my wares that I lost; with my life, I can struggle to regain my balance by God’s grace. It’s painful but what can we do? It has happened; we just have to move on from here and not allow the incident to weigh us down. The struggle continues,” Adebanjo said.

Odunayo Adedoyin, who believed the incident to be spiritual, said it should be regarded as a temporary setback. “We shall rise again as far as our God lives.

My greatest happiness is that our Igbo friends in this plaza have taught us the rudiments of struggle; they never give up and we have taken a cue from them. “The building over here (pointing to the Great Nigeria House) got burnt last year and had been abandoned till now. This plaza first got burnt two months ago but was reconstructed. I won’t be surprised if this is reconstructed also.

My only worry is that this misfortune always happens between November and December,” he said. At the scene of the fire incident on Wednesday, emergency responders were still battling to extinguish the fire as Lagos State fire officials were seen with heavy trucks trying to clear the rubble. It was gathered that the section of the razed building that collapsed killed a Mobile Policeman.

Counting her loss, Adedoyin said the structure had been similarly gutted in the past, adding that the cause of the recent inferno was speculated to have started from a faulty generator on the third floor. “I don’t know exactly how the fire started, but some our colleagues are pointing to a faulty generator on the third floor.

How true I can’t say for now. It started around 9am and the Lagos State Fire Service, Union Bank’s firefighters and other agencies rushed in trying to extinguish it but they were not successful. One of the buildings burnt and collapsed while the second was also heavily damaged. There is fear now that it might also go down. Two years ago, the same thing happened.”

Shop owners, who were around the vicinity, were seen mobilising sympathisers to assist with the evacuation of a few unburnt goods. One of them, who craved anonymity, said that hoodlums took advantage of the inferno to loot the goods belonging to traders affected by the incident. He however, pleaded that the state government should develop a more civilised way to respond to fire emergencies faster.

“When the fire started, there was no response from the fire service; we want the government to develop a quick way of extinguishing fire. We have lost a lot as a result of this incident. Some of our goods that were salvaged were eventually stolen by hoodlums,” he said. While the fire raged, some residents, according to eyewitnesses, could be seen throwing belongings from windows, while others tried to put out the fire with small buckets of water. Firefighters also tried to contain the flames with a fire truck spraying water onto the fire. Balogun is a busy market that spans over many blocks in Nigeria’s largest city.

It is one of the country’s largest markets for colourful Nigerian fabrics and other wares. In March, at least 20 people, mostly school children, died in a similar mishap on a Lagos Island neighbourhood when a building containing a school, shops, and apartments suddenly collapsed.

Meanwhile, the Lagos State governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, while on a visit to the scene of the incident on Wednesday, promised that the state government would support traders whose means of livelihood were destroyed in the incident. Although there was minimal human casualty in the fire incident, scores of clothing shops in the building were burnt down and traders lost goods worth millions of naira. Besides, he said, the government would be conducting integrity test on all buildings in the Central Business District on the Lagos Island, adding that his administration would re-visit the regeneration master plan already designed by previous administrations. He urged all families that own properties on the Lagos Island to support the move.

Also speaking on the fire incident, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, sympathised with traders and shop owners at the popular Balogun Market, over the fire outbreak that occurred a few day ago.

The Speaker said the fire incident, which affected two-storey buildings at No. 43 and 45 Martins Street, in the market where properties worth millions of naira were lost, were unfortunate. In a statement by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Lanre Lasisi, the Speaker said it was painful that traders and shop owners, who were carrying out their lawful businesses, would wake up only to face such an incident. He called on relevant authorities to take measures that would forestall a recurrence of such an incident. (New Telegraph)

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