Fire guts shops in Ogbomoso, goods worth millions of naira lost – ‘fire brigade failed us’
Adebayo ADELEKE
Millions of naira was lost in a destructive inferno that gutted at least five shops at Oke-Owode area, Ogbomoso, Oyo state, in the early hours of Tuesday.
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Besides the Adeseun/Pivotal ICT Centre, the shops that were affected include two palm kernel processing plants, a business centre, a furniture shop, a photo studio and a fruit shop.
“It is disastrous but the losses could have been mitigated,” one of the victims, Waliyat Mutiu, lamented. “We rushed to the fire station about a kilometre away but they said their vehicle was faulty and so could not take it out.”
Thus, because of the unavailability of help from the fire station over N50 million was lost in goods and properties including containers and sheds.
Waliyat Mutiu, who was seen with her husband, assessing the situation, added, “two of our shops were affected. We don’t know how the fire started. We left here at about 1am. I have a brother who lives around here, he said electricity was taken off after 1am. At about 2am, the woman selling agric products in front of our shops said a night guard called that there was fire outbreak in the axis, we went to the fire station but they said their vehicle was not in good condition.”
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She informed, corroborated by the husband, that they lost “30 drums of palm kernel oil, worth N200, 000 each; oil extracting machine, worth N3m; and loads of unprocessed palm kernel.”
She said sympathizers assisted frantically to put out the fire by fetching water from a distance but “nothing was salvaged.”
Mr. Mutiu also disclosed, “We left at about 1am. I was bathing when they called me. We switched off the light before we left, we appealed to government to help us. We lost a processing machine, I just replaced a rotor worth N600, 000 in the machine, palm kernel alone was worth over N5m, and buildings were burnt too. In fact, we just replaced the roof because it was recently blown off by rainstorm.”
The owner of the furniture shop, which comprised factory and showroom, Adewale Opeyemi, was however not on ground when ogbomosoinsightonline.com visited the scene, but one of his apprentices, Quadri Yunis, maintained nobody knew how the fire started. “We don’t know how it happened. The loss was heavy, furniture items and machines were lost in the inferno. We lost electric machines, ABF and NBF boards, plywood, wardrobes and the container.”
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The business centre owner was also not found at the scene, but when contacted on phone, the husband whose name could not however be ascertained, bemoaned their loss was great, “We lost computers, printers, colour printers, photocopiers, I just bought a big photocopier worth N500, 000, the whole stationery wares, and our container, everything went up in flames. What can we do?”
Owners of the photography shop and the fruit shop were also absent at the scene but while the photo studio was totally lost the fruit shop owned by a woman identified as Iya Ruka had some of his wares saved by rescuers.
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Efforts to speak with the fire brigade officers at Oja’gbo was however not successful as at the time of filing this report.
However, investigations by ogbomosoinsightonline.com revealed that a firefighting vehicle provided during the tenure of Governor Adebayo Alao-Akala was retrieved during the administration of Governor Abiola Ajimobi. Since then, there have been setback in fire fighting operation in Ogbomoso.
