A fire on Sunday razed shops and goods reportedly worth millions of naira at Eda Plaza, a building materials market located opposite Chida Hotel in Jabi, Abuja.
The Nigerian Television Authority posted a video of the scene, which shows shop owners racing to salvage goods.
An eyewitness told NTA that the alarm was raised around 3 a.m. on Sunday after his brother-in-law, who owns two shops and a packing store in the affected plaza, received a distress call from a market colleague.
He stated that there were no casualties in the incident.
The eyewitness said, “We were at home this morning, as early as 3 am, and my brother-in-law received a call from one of his colleagues here in the plaza that the plaza was on fire. So we had to rush down there. On getting here, we discovered that the situation was so bad.”
When they arrived, he stated the fire had already spread far, leaving only one of his brother-in-law’s two shops remaining.
“In this plaza, my brother-in-law had two shops and a packing store. Unfortunately, only one of the shops was saved. The other shop and the packing store were totally damaged by the fire,” he added.
The eyewitness estimated the worth of roofing materials lost in the fire at more than N20 million, noting that part of the burned materials had been freshly erected the night before the tragedy.
“Over here, you see some of the roofs that we still have here. We are talking about a roof that is worth over N20 million lost in this fire,” he said, adding, “Because of the other shop, we had roofs that were just restocked last night. And then the packing store also had roofs that were just restocked last night.”
The eyewitness stated that he was consoled that the incident claimed no casualties despite the heavy losses recorded.
“In our situation, we give thanks to God that no life was lost in this situation,” he said.
The head of the Julius Berger firefighters’ team, which also responded to the incident, said the situation was under control.
“We were called by a quarter to 4:00 in the morning, helping to extinguish the fire.
“We had two fire engines, two fire-water tankers, and eight firemen that helped extinguish this fire.
“It took us approximately four hours to… with the help, obviously, of the Federal Fire Department to get this fire under control.”
He called on the people to evacuate buildings in the event of a fire and avoid interfering with firefighters.
“In case of fire, evacuate the building and don’t disturb the firefighters doing their job. This is what is actually happening here. Everybody is inside there. I understand they try to save their possessions, but this is life. Life matters, and safety first.”
