Fire razes new Benin market

Goods and properties worth
millions of naira were
yesterday destroyed in a fire
which gutted parts of the
popular New Benin Market,
Benin City. The cause was
unknown as at the time of
this report.

More than 50 shops stocked
with household and food
items, which stretched from
Eki-Edo Street were affected
by the inferno, with about 10
shops burnt beyond
recognition by the time the
fire service got to the scene.
At the scene, men of the
Supply and Transport Unit of
Nigerian Army were seen
putting out the flames, which
still emanated from some of
the goods.

Traders whose shops were
affected by the inferno
wailed uncontrollably as
they moved to salvage what
was left of their means of
livelihood, and youth from
the community joined the
soldiers to put out the fire in
some of the shops not badly
affected.

One of the traders, Ignatus
Nnabuefe, who deals in
baking materials, told
journalists that he was at his
shop in the morning to drop
some goods he just bought,
after which he decided to go
home after the compulsory
morning's sanitation
exercise in the market, only
to be called back minutes
later that his shop was on
fire.

"And by the time I came here,
everything I owned was gone;
I was not able to retrieve
anything from the fire, not
even the goods I bought new
this very morning to sell and
which is very painful because
I just dropped them there,"
lamented Mr. Nnabuefe.

Another trader who spoke
amidst tears, Tochukwu
Abieke, said her family lost
everything they had laboured
for, as they lost all the goods
in their three shops which
belonged to her, her mother,
Lois, and her father, Patrick.

Omoregieva Gbajumo, the
Oredo local government
chairman, who was at the
scene of the fire incident,
praised the efforts of the
community youth and traders
who used their combined
efforts in putting out the
fire, thereby preventing it
from spreading to other
parts of the market.

Mr. Gbajumo promised that
government will investigate
the cause of the fire and also
assured the traders who lost
their goods of possible
compensation.