Photos: Fire incident at Ogunpa Market in Ibadan leaves traders in anguish

Gloom cast over Ogunpa market, Ibadan, as properties estimated at about N200 million naira were lost in a fire incident which razed about 100 buildings and shops in the building materials section, on Tuesday. The incident, which started at about 3.00 a.m. was said to have resulted from a spark when electricity was restored. It, however, took the combative efforts of the Oyo State Fire Service to prevent the inferno from raging further.

When the Nigerian Tribune visited, some of the affected persons were seen trying to gather some of their leftover materials.

Speaking, the Babaloja, Ogunpa Central Market, Mr Abdulfatai Olaiya, maintained that the fire, which resulted from a spark when electricity was restored, might have been due to illegal connection by owners of some shops.

“We were called by the night guards at about 3.00 a.m. that Ogunpa was on fire. When we got here, we were told that it was caused by a spark when power was restored.

“There are some people who illegally tapped electricity. It started from the shops and spread to the adjoining buildings. When I got here, the building and shops were still on fire. Before the fire fighters could quench it, it had engulfed the whole building and burnt it completely,” Olaiya said.

“Some lost both their store and shop. About 300 shops were consumed and we lost about 300 million naira. This happened about one year ago, and we pray that this time around, the government will come to our aid. We are about 2,000 people here and have nowhere else to go,” he added.

One of the affected persons, Mr Deji Adebari, also appealed for government’s support to enable them to pick up their lives again.

Adebari said: “we have nothing anymore. We don’t know where to start from; We ask for help from the government. For the meantime, we will have to gather ourselves to bring it up because this is our means of livelihood. Without it, we cannot feed ourselves and families. Probably some of us will have to go and borrow money, we have been borrowing to keep our business afloat, and we have to do that again.”