Also, properties worth millions of Naira were completely damaged as fire gutted the Nigerian Cuatoms Training School. Some sawmills and shops located inside the Agoro community were also burnt, leaving the owners to sell what was left of their belongings to scavengers who took over the rescue activities at the scene of the incident.
One of the residents whose house was totally gutted in the inferno, Ganiyu Awodele, a 35 year old artisan, told Sunday Telegraph at the scene of the incident that the fire started at about 1am after electricity was restored.
“There was power failure from 10pm and when power was restored at about 1am, the light tripped off again, only for us to start hearing shouts of fire in a nearby house. “What we heard was that electrical sparks caused the fire. Before we knew it, the fire started spreading fast because of the closeness of the buildings.
The houses are too tight together. So, this made it to spread very fast. Everything I have worked for in my life had been burnt in the fire. I don’t know where to start from after years of hard work to put my properties together.”
Despite losing all his properties, Awodele said his consolation was that no member of his family was affected by the fire. “No life was lost, as all my family members were rescued by neighbours who reacted promptly in the rescue operation,” he said. He noted that the fire would not have spread so badly if the people had come together as a group to fight the fire.
“Instead of fighting the fire not to spread, the people were busy rescuing their properties. And before they returned from where they took their valuables to, the fire had wrecked serious havoc. That was why we had about 200 buildings burnt to ashes.”
Another victim, Rasak Olusile, a 32 years old carpenter, told Sunday Telegraph that his carpentry shop and his house were gutted in the inferno. He revealed that all his work tools had been burnt, same as his personal belongings.
“As I am now, I don’t have anything I can call my own, not even a house to keep my family. I have been staying at the Agoro district of Okobaba since I was born 32 years ago and I can tell you that, we have never been badly hit with such fire disaster before. This is the biggest ever to happen in Okobaba.
And bad enough, it has taken everything I have worked for in my life. We don’t have water in our community, this would have helped us to fight the fire before it went out of hand.” A miserable Olusile told our reporter, “When the fire started at about 1am, we started hearing explosive sounds from the building where the fire started, but no one could confirm what it was, but I can tell you that each time the explosive sound increased, the fire expanded.
“The disaster wouldn’t have been so bad if the fire service had responded promptly. When we called the fire service at Ebute Metta, they said they could not help us as they did not have water to fight the fire. So we now called the Fire Service at Alausa, Ikeja, from where help eventually came, but this did not come until one hour after the fire started.
The damage was so bad when they got here, but they still tried their best to quench the fire, which they eventually did at about 4.30am. “If not for the fire service, the damages would have been more. We lost millions of naira worth of properties,” Olusile said. The Baale of Agoro, Okobaba, Chief Musbau Amole, told our reporter that, the fire disaster consumed half of his community.
He expressed his sadness on the incident which he said was becoming too rampant in the Okobaba area. “The disaster was so much because, our people built their houses with wood and the space in-between the houses is nothing to write home about.
I was called on my mobile phone about 1am when the fire started, but I could not reach there until the fire service came to the rescue, it would have been more disastrous. “We want to appeal to the government to come to the aid of those who lost everything they have worked for.
And also help us to establish a fire service point close to Okobaba. The issue of fire outbreak is becoming too much in Okobaba, but the past time we had it so bad like this one that happened on Saturday morning was in 2016.” As at the time of filling this report, nobody could ascertain the cause of the inferno which had rendered many homeless.
While some blamed the incident on land grabbers, saying that some disgruntled individuals deliberately set the community on fire, others said the inferno might have been caused by illegal storage of Premium Motor Spirit also known petrol in some of the buildings.
Speaking with Sunday Telegraph, the state’s Director of Fire Service, Mr. Rasak Fadipe, said that the agency couldn’t confirm the cause of the incident, saying that the communities, which according to him, were made up of make-shift buildings, were already on fire when the agency received the emergency call. Fadipe said:
“The fire started around 10:30pm on Friday, we battled it till early this morning, (yesterday morning). The buildings were made up of wooden make-shift structures used as commercial residential purposes. Tree trucks from Isolo, Sari-Iganmu and Ojo were immediately deployed to the scene.
“When we got there, we observed that the fire was much, so we were busy battling the fire. We couldn’t investigate the cause of the fire,” he added. Fadipe added that the Nigerian Customs Training School fire occurred around 1am and lasted for several hours.
According to him, part of the storey building which first-floor was used as training centre and the ground floor as warehouse collapsed and compounded the difficulty encountered in managing the emergency incident.
Fadipe, who said that excavators were still working on the burnt and collapsed custom building as 5:30pm yesterday, also confirmed that no life was lost in the incidents. Also speaking on the fire incident at Nigeria Customs Storage, the General Manager, Lagos State Emergency Management Agency, LASEMA, Mr. Michael Akindele, said that proper investigation would be conducted on the incident. According to him, the Agency received a report via the Emergency Control Room. He said: “There was no loss of life nor injury sustained at the scene.
However properties worth millions of Naira have been lost. Three training classes were completely burnt. While the main training complex of about 10 classes were salvaged Operatives of the Agency, Lagos State Fire service from Ikeja, Ilupeju and Alausa with NPF were on ground.
