Oba Market Traders Weep, Count Losses As Fire Guts Shops, Goods

Tragedy struck on Saturday, January 21, 2023, when midday fire burnt a lot of shops in the popular Lagos street of the Oba Market in Benin city, the Edo State capital.
Goods and property worth millions of naira were destroyed in the inferno.
One of the eyewitnesses, who said she did not want her name to be mentioned, told National Point that they could not really explain how the fire started.
The source said when they discovered that there was a thick dark smoke in one of the shops in the building before the fire spread to other shop, they quickly alerted the Edo State Fire service but the fire fighters came close to one hours 13 minutes, later.
She said when the fire fighters came, they started doing their best to ensure the fire was put out, but explained that as the fire fighters were trying to off the fire, the fire escalated more spreading to other shops, and eventually, the whole building was burnt which affected most of the shops.
The one-storey building housed many lockup shops allegedly belonging to a woman popularly known as “Madam Lagos,” a chieftain of the PDP in the state.
Narrating her pain, one of the shop owners, Mrs. Chioma Kelvin, said she was in church when they called to inform her that her shop was on fire.
Chioma lamented that before she could get to her jewelry shop, the fire had already consumed everything.
“I don’t know the time the fire started because I was in church when they called to inform me that my shop was on fire. Today, being Saturday, I don’t usually open my shop. I lost almost hundred and something million naira to the fire because I deal on jewelries,” she said in tears.
She called on the state government and other Nigerians to come to her help. “I want the government and all Nigerians to come to my rescue.”
Another victim, Mrs. Itohan Osazuwa, said she was not in the market when the incident occurred. She said she went to a village market to buy food stuffs and it was when she was in the village market purchasing goods that she had a call that her shop was burning.
Mrs. Osazuwa appealed to governments and good spirited individuals to come to her aid lamenting, that she even had some money kept in the shop that fire razed.
Meanwhile, another victim, Obinna Obi, has faulted the State Fire Service for failing to respond promptly when they were called.
Obi said had the fire fighters arrived on time, they would have been able to salvage the situation.
“We called the Fire Service. They didn’t pick their calls. The fire started very little, had it been that the fire fighters came on time, they would have been able to save the situation,” he alleged.