News Desk
National Assembly member representing Nasarawa,Toto Federal Constituency, honourable Abdulmumuni Ari and traders in Nasarawa central market that was gutted by fire, blamed the fire fighting service stationed in Nasarawa town and Power Holding Company of Nigeria for huge looses in the market resulting from fire outbreak.
The House of representative member , Abdulmumuni Ari who was at the scene of the fire incident, to symphatise with the traders over their looses swiftly made a cash donation of Five Hundred Thousand Naira to help them evacuate the destroyed ware house where sesame seeds and melon were kept in hundreds bags.
Expressing his regrets and sympathy with the traders , he assured that he will do everything humanly possible to ensure that NEMA an agency of the Federal Government as well as the Nasarawa State Government under the able leadership of Engineer Abdullahi Sule , the state governor intervene in restoring the burnt market .
Speaking through his media aide .. the lawmaker said” As you can see the market located here in Nasarawa town is not only patronize by our people of Nasarawa Local Government alone, but people from all works of life come in here to buy and sale. This portion of the market which has been razed down by fire is one of the warehouse in the market that sesame seed, known in Hausa as Ridi and Melon” Egusi is stocked in large numbers of bags.
“I couldn’t have stayed longer than now to take assessment of the devastating and disastrous fire incident that occurred on Saturday morning , leaving owners of the farm produces as well as traders counting their loses. From preliminary findings I understood the fire started as a result of the unstable supply of electricity , which would had been brought down if the fire fighters of the Nasarawa State fire service had promptly responded when the incident was reported but I was meant to understand that they did not show up, talk more of tackling the raging fire that consumed the entire warehouse.
“I am their representative and I will within my capacity do everything to make sure that NEMA and the Nasarawa State Government come in and help restore the hope of this traders who are already counting their loses in Hundred Millions of Naira , at a very critical economy situation as the one we are facing” Hon, Ari submitted.
Lamenting on behalf of others, the chairman , Noma Tushin Arziki Cooperative Society , Nasarawa , Alhaji Ibrahim Salihu Ache , said the incident happened on the early hours of 19th August , at about 3 am .” I was contacted on phone that fire is burning in our cooperative warehouse, I had to rushed to the warehouse at that time , it was only one shop that was on fire , and that is where the fire started . I quickly went to the fire service office and met with the personnel . I was the one that even woke them from sleep to tell them that there is fire outbreak I’m the market and our warehouse is affected.
“And they said o’ Alhaji , sorry, we can not assist you because the vehicle for fire fighting is not working for almost two weeks now. I was shocked and surprised and had to returned to the market disappointed. But with the help of people around us , we had to struggle but at that time the fire had extended into some parts of the warehouse . Sincerely speaking we have to thank the Emir of Nasarawa and the Eze Igbo, who are our neighbours , the emir open his gate to allow people to ene his resident and fetch water, which we used .
” So we have lost a lot of things . What we lost at the moment are sesame (Ridi) and melon(Agusi) seeds . Everybody knows that this is the season of melon, where the farmers bring their farm produce to the market to sale. These are people that untill they sale their melon before they can afford food to eat in their houses. So going by our estimate statistically , we have lost over One Hundred and Fifty Three Million Naira(#153,000.000.00)He recounted.
Alhaji Ibrahim further explained that there were over 170 bags of melon stored in the ware house , stating further that since Saturday when the fire gutted the warehouse , they had written a letter of complain to the senator representing the zone , house of representative member and also to the state house of assembly member .
He blamed the cause of the fire disaster on PHCN and the fire service for their inabilities which led to the fire outbreak and looses in the market.
Techrectory and Agency Report.
