By Ken Afor
The Permanent Secretary of the Lagos State Emergency Management Agency (LASEMA), Dr. Femi Oke-Osanyitolu, has attributed the fire incident that engulfed four buildings on Dosumu Street in Idumota, Lagos Island Local Government Area in Lagos State on Wednesday to the high concentration of inflammable items in the area.
Speaking on Friday during an on-the-spot assessment visit to the scene, Dr. Oke-Osanyitolu noted that over 80% of trading materials in the Dosumu Street market pose a significant fire risk due to their highly flammable nature.
He further noted that the shop and building owners in the area flouted building codes, contributing to the severity of the incident.
The head of LASEMA emphasized the need for improved safety measures and emergency management practices.
He said: “The fire which affected five of the buildings at about 7 a.m on Wednesday, could not have been so damaging if the shop owners and building owners had followed building codes.
“However, to ensure maximum safety of lives and property, integrity test will be carried out on six of the buildings and any failure to pass integrity test, could lead to the pulling down of some of the buildings to ground zero.”
Meanwhile, some of the victims who suffered losses amounting to millions of naira lamented the escalation of the fire, attributing it to a lack of cooperation among the traders.
According to the victims, some of the traders only mobilized to extinguish the fire when it began to spread to adjacent shops and buildings, by that time, it had already reached an uncontrollable stage.
Despite their efforts, the victims appealed to the Lagos State Government for assistance to help them rebuild their lives from scratch, as reported by the Vanguard.
“I want to plead on behalf of my colleagues to Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, to have mercy on us by assisting us as several goods worth millions of naira were lost in the inferno.
“In this period of difficult economic challenges, we have no hope of getting money to restock our stores. For me, I lost well over N10 million worth of goods in fabrics,” said one of the affected traders, Mr. Mudashiru Ahmed.
