50 stores were destroyed, and one person was hurt in a fire that broke out at the Bodija plank market in the Oyo State local government of Ibadan North.
Ahmed Abdulwasiu, the injured victim, is being treated at Calvary Baptist Hospital in Bodija, Ibadan.
Abdulwasiu described how he was trying to put out the flames in his shop before becoming trapped, stating he would have perished if rescuers hadn’t acted quickly.
Another victim, Mutiu Olaoluwa, a furniture trader, said, I was outside my shop when I suddenly heard the fire upsurge. Before I knew it, the flames covered everywhere. I couldn’t take anything out. Over 75 doors belonging to my customer were burnt. My N120,000 plank was also burnt.
“I lost over N5 million to the fire because all my equipment, generator, and machines were burnt. All I have been laboring for the past 30 to 40 years was burnt.”
Adeniyi Ogunmola said, I was here yesterday around 4:30 pm, and the fire started from a carpenter shop behind my shop, I went there to see what is going on, on my way back to my shop to carry my equipment, the flames came to my shop in less than five minutes.”
“If not for people that carried me out of the flames, I would have died by now, I just came back from the market where I loaded a full trailer of plank, and I lost about N6 million goods to the incident.”
The victims called on the government to come to their aid.
