… It’s Not True — Chief Nwobodo
Accusations and counter accusations has begun to trail the fire accident that gutted the Umuaji line of Ogbogonogo market, Asaba, the Delta State capital which was razed down last night as shop owners are already counting their lost.
The traders alleged that the inferno was the hand work of their enemies who were already plotting to evict them from the market.
Loading ...Narrating their ordeal, the traders said the Oshimili South Council Area had sometimes come to them to quit the place for a new modern building to replace the old ones but they refused to listen to them as there was no other place they could shift to.
“They want us to leave where we are now because they want to reallocate the shops to their people in the name of erecting new shops with blocks”, they alleged.
According to them, “this is not any electric problem, it is a plot to render us hopeless. We don’t use generating set here. And we have locked our shops, only for calls to come in last night that our shops were burning”, purporting that the fire was as a result of the N100 levy that they refused to pay Thursday and Friday to the council.
They also accused security personnel guarding the market of complicity, “if they were walking around the place, the fire won’t have come this extend. We pay N500 every month for security yet they could not savaged the situation”.
Mr Brown Adimma, one of the victims who said he lost over N500, 000, said, “This is a new shop, I just stocked it with food items last week”, he lamented.
Another victim, Mrs. Ifeoma Uba, dealer on provisions and food stuff with two shops said, “Yesterday after I finished selling, I went home about 6:30 pm when I got home, I received a call that our shops were burning. When I arrived here, I have lost everything to the fire”, disclosing that she had lost over N800, 000 to the fire disaster.
In a counter reaction to the allegations raised by the affected traders, the chairman of the Umuaji line, Chief Augustine Nwobodo however, claimed that the fire was caused by electrical spark when the Benin Electricity Distribution Company restored power to the area, stressing that the security saw fire when BEDC restored electricity but later obstructed it but that the fire went uncontrollable when power was restored again.
“Nobody will be happy burning anybody’s shop. When I was called, I immediately called the council chairman and we arrived here at same time. Criminal took advantage to loot properties”.
Chief Nwobodo joined many of the affected traders to call on the government to come to their aide as about 30 shops were razed down by the fire.
Items lost to the fire include: Bags of rice, beans, fresh ground nut, crayfish, gallons and bottles of palm and ground nut oil, stock fish and bend down select boutiques popularly known as okereke among others.
