•Dosunmu, Lagos market fire
Alhaja Mainat Bakare’s voice broke at intervals as she struggled to hold back tears from her reddened eyes while speaking with our correspondent.
The businesswoman could hardly find words to describe how her warehouse on Dosunmu Street, in the Lagos Island area of Lagos State, which was recently restocked with goods, was reduced to rubbles by an inferno no one saw coming, reports Saturday PUNCH.
“I have a warehouse in one of the buildings where I store tailoring and other fashion accessories. I just offloaded a container.
“I have some other friends, including my sister, who offloaded their containers. All the goods in that warehouse were lost to the fire. The goods there are worth millions,” she said, pointing to her now charred warehouse.
Bakare said she and her group of friends had been using loans to sustain their businesses as the harsh economy continues to bite.
“Some of us are surviving only on credit facilities and loans. We want the state government and other authorities to help us. We appeal to Nigerians to come to our aid because this is too much. I have nothing left,” she added as she lowered her head in grief.
At least 14 buildings were said to have been razed in the fire incident that occurred on Tuesday. The fire was reportedly caused by the careless refuelling of a generator in the penthouse of one of the buildings.
A sore atmosphere filled the air when our correspondent visited Dosunmu Market, Idumota, on Thursday. The ruins of the market inferno could be seen metres away as onlookers shared pathetic stories of millions-worth businesses that have now been swallowed up in flames.
The traders who lost their shops and warehouses to the fire hung around the safe zones with emotions of sadness and hopelessness written over their faces.
Our correspondent noticed that nearby buildings, including residential houses which are probably unaffected by the fire, were deserted.
Sadly, Bakare was only among the many traders and residents who lost almost everything to the incident.
An electronics merchant who preferred to be identified as Samuel said he kept the money he recently borrowed to boost his business.
The father of two said, “I don’t know where to start from. I just collected N750,000 from my cooperative (group) to buy more goods for my business.
“It was already night so I thought I should keep the money in the shop till the following day when I would order. How will I pay the loan when I don’t have a shop or goods to sell?”
While our correspondent was at the scene, murmurs could be heard about what could have caused the Tuesday fire. Many said it started from a penthouse of one of the buildings that was eventually razed down by the fire.
A man who operated a printing shop at the penthouse identified as Uche was said to be refuelling his generator during use when the fire ignited. Our correspondent gathered that the fire spread to adjoining buildings in the area due to its intensity while occupants ran for dear lives.
Findings further revealed that though no life was lost in the fire, property worth millions was lost.
When our correspondent returned to the market again yesterday, some parts of the burned buildings still had heavy smoke billowing out of them. A section of a fallen building was still in flames as safety officials, including those from the state fire service, continued to put out the flames.
Shop owners and residents of nearby buildings not affected were seen urging rescuers into the buildings to salvage their property. It was also learnt that many of them had concluded plans to desert the buildings for the time being.
Another shop owner, Alhaja Supo, who sold clothing materials in one of the buildings that was destroyed told our correspondent that she had just bought the materials a client had paid for before disaster struck. The visibly distressed woman said she had nowhere else to turn to as her colleagues who could help her also suffered the same fate.
She said, “I just bought the materials someone wants to use for her daughter’s marriage. It was the payment I used to buy the materials. Now that everything is gone, I do not know what to do. All the people I can turn to in this market also lost their shops to the fire.”
Like Supo, Femi, who sold items in the market, said he had hoped to complete the payment of his loan with the sales recorded at the end of the week. He said he had been paying the six-month debt since November 2023 and was happy he would finally be free from the monthly commitments before the incident.
He added, “Now that I lost everything, I do not know where to begin. I cannot even think of any loan now. I have to recover from this loss.
“My wife could not come here because she is still in shock. My family has been crying since Tuesday. Who do we turn to?”
Our correspondent further gathered that many of the affected shop owners neither understood what a fire insurance policy is nor had one.
One of the traders said though her cousin had once told her about the need to have her shop insured against fire outbreaks, she had yet to subscribe to it because of the cost.
“I have an idea what it is but how can I pay for fire insurance when I have not completed the payment for the shop? There are plenty of things I need money for in this hard economy,” she said.
Former Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola, in January 2022, said no fewer than 136 lives and property worth N3tn were lost to several fire incidents that occurred around the country in 2021.
According to an insurance company, Leadway Assurance, insurance penetration in Nigeria stood at 0.5 percent as of March 2022, which makes it one of the worst in Africa.
Lagos’ unending fire outbreaks
The Dosunmu market incident is just one of the numerous fire incidents which have occurred in the state in recent times.
Around 1 pm on January 21, fire gutted the popular 10-storey Mandilas building, a commercial structure housing dozens of shops and goods worth millions of naira on Broad Street, Lagos Island.
Two weeks later, on February 4, 2024, a plank market located around Awori Bus Stop in the Abule Egba area of the state caught fire around 3 pm. According to a video that circulated online, a significant part of the sawmill was destroyed by the fire as property worth a fortune was reduced to ruins. Five mini-buses, two pickup vans, and two cars were also lost to the fire.
It was gathered that the fire was caused by the snapping of a high-tension power cable on a row of market stalls. The fire was also said to have been aided by the wooden materials leading to massive losses.
On Tuesday, January 26, 2021, the popular Alade Market in the Somolu area of Lagos was gutted by fire. No fewer than 70 lock-up shops were reportedly destroyed.
At least four cows, three goats, and an office building belonging to the National Council of Arts and Culture were lost to a late-night fire that razed the National Arts Theatre in Iganmu on December 30, 2023.
Dosunmu fire consequence of irresponsibility – Gov
Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, during a visit to the scene of the Dosunmu market fire on Thursday, did not hide his disappointment as he ordered the closure of the market.
Sanwo-Olu said an assessment would be conducted and structures that did not fulfil relevant regulatory guidelines would not be spared.
“This is the consequence of inaction and irresponsibility. This market will be closed until we are able to do a full assessment and cleanup of this area.
“Some other buildings are still going to go down. This is totally unacceptable. We will not allow a few people who will not comply with our rules and laws to put the lives of others in danger.
“We will come really hard on structures and properties that will not conform to our guidelines. There will be zero tolerance for reckless behaviour in the markets.
“We will not fold our hands and watch another one happen. A lot of residential buildings that were approved as residences were converted to warehouses, including people’s living rooms.
“The physical planning authorities are going to be having a difficult time with me over this incident. This incident has been happening too often and it is totally unacceptable. This is not acceptable in residential buildings,” the governor said.
Friday meeting
It was learnt that Governor Sanwo-Olu met with the Director-General of the National Emergency Management Agency, Zubaida Umar, yesterday to discuss the next steps following the containment of the fire.
In a release signed by the Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Gboyega Akosile, the governor expressed disappointment over what he called the “reckless handling of flammable materials”.
He was quoted as saying, “Before the unfortunate fire incident, we had conducted sensitisation and held extensive advocacy for traders on the need to refrain from acts that could potentially endanger their lives and their trading environment.
“We are utterly disappointed because we believe the incident could have been avoided; some traders in the market were completely reckless and inconsiderate. There have been disagreements among the traders as to the cause of the fire, with some of them linking it to sabotage and others saying leadership tussle.
“But that did not take away the fact that they were completely irresponsible in endangering their assets and those of others in the market. Our response to this laxity will be very decisive in the coming days and we will ensure the reckless tendency of the traders is curtailed.”
Poor safety culture rampant – Experts
Experts told our correspondent that low enforcement of housing maintenance and fire preventive laws in Lagos state and generally the country was a major contributor to avoidable disasters. They added that lack of adequate knowledge and poor awareness played a major role in several cases of fire outbreaks.
The Executive Secretary of the Association of Housing Corporations of Nigeria, Toye Eniola, said the absence of preventive measures in houses worsened situations in the event of a fire outbreak.
He said, “From all of these incidents, one thing is certain. Many of the houses in Lagos do not have fire protection mechanisms. How many houses have fire extinguishers? In the absence of these measures, there will be an escalation when a fire occurs.
“Houses will always get old and we have to go through normal regeneration. When they are old, you cannot pull them down except when they have reached a stage where they cannot be used anymore.”
Eniola told our correspondent that there was poor enforcement of housing laws that regulated building maintenance which makes house owners non-compliant. He added that the government needed to mandate the agency in charge of enforcement to do its job effectively.
“We have laws that regulate all of these things but enforcement of these laws is an issue. People do not maintain houses in this part of the world, especially for commercial houses. Landlords are not interested in maintenance. This bad maintenance culture contributes to some of these fire incidents.
“If we do regular checks and maintenance, we will discover how to take care of the structures. We need the government to bring more enforcement to these laws that stipulate that preventive and maintenance measures should be in place.
“If the people are not there to ensure compliance, the laws will not be complied with. There is a need for a responsive system.”
Corroborating the AHCN’s executive secretary’s position, a building expert, Olufemi Oyedele, said, “There is supposed to be monitoring and control of buildings; there is a commission for that. Lagos State has all the apparatus to make the state work but there can be inefficiency in some quarters.
“Unfortunately, when the enforcers go out, they see it as an avenue to make money and not to work. This is peculiar to Nigeria generally.
“Also, fire services should not only be for quenching fire. They should also employ fire preventive measures. Just like a medical doctor should not work to only cure diseases but also prevent them.
“Fire services should move around to ensure that preventive measures are on the ground. It should even be compulsory in markets.”
Oyedele further stated that the relevant government agency should also not give approvals without conducting necessary checks like setbacks to check the distance between buildings and roads in case of a fire outbreak and other emergency incidents.
The estate surveyor added the failure of building or shop owners to get insurance for their buildings made it difficult to recover their losses during incidents like a fire outbreak.
Oyedele said, “There is a low insurance patronage in Nigeria generally. This spreads to all areas including auto insurance. There is a law about insurance, especially on public buildings. It states that all public buildings should be insured, and a market is a public building.
“Unfortunately, there is no awareness and enforcement of this law. Many of the local market women do not know what that is. They need to know that they should insure the structure as well as the content of the building.
“Relevant agencies should come together to create awareness and ensure enforcement of relevant laws. The awareness should not only be in the media because many are not connected. It should include traditional sensitisation.”
The Lagos Territorial Coordinator of the National Emergency Management Authority, Ibrahim Farinloye, said the agency had yet to consider palliatives for the victims of the incident and those who lost their businesses.
He added, “It is not now; we are still in the emergency phase. It is in the post-emergency phase that we will consider an assessment of the affected buildings, remuneration, the victims, and their dependants.
“Many of them are traumatised now so the psycho-social treatment has to come in first before we start asking questions. It will be aggressive to approach them now.”
However, a health and safety professional, Ehi Iden, said there was a need to include fire preventive measures in building projects from the design stages. He said the procedure should be one of the key parameters that should be met before building construction is approved.
Iden, who is also the Chief Executive Officer of Occupational Health and Safety Managers, added, “Multiple exits are required. Also, homeowners must have insurance covering their properties, this should be made mandatory.
“A number of these traders are either illiterate or semi-illiterates. The government and other stakeholders need to create awareness of this. The markets as they are today are too congested, and the people in those markets do not even have access to sufficient oxygen.
“We recommend annual or twice-a-year market risk assessment inspection or audit, this is important and helps us all to know what are the prevailing risks so we can recommend corrective actions.”
