By SADIQ ABUBAKAR, Damaturu –
Goods worth several millions of naira were on Friday destroyed during a fire incident that occurred at the Potiskum grain main market in Yobe State.
Residents told our correspondent on phone that the fire began as early as around 3:00 am which attracted the attention of the State Fire Service men who immediately rushed to the market to put off the fire.
The Potiskum Fire Service fighters were also joined by their Nangere fire service counterparts to control the situation.
Malam Adamu Fiika, a maize seller who is one of the grains shop owners said, “I was sleeping when I heard my phone ringing and woke up to pick the phone. “
” On picking the call, I was shocked to hear that the grains market we left and closed Thursday night was on fire and had razed down many shops,.
“This made me to quickly dress up and rush to the market to see things for myself where I even met some of my colleagues already at the market”.
“In fact, we actually lost lots of property and foodstuff worth hundreds of millions of naira as thousands of bags of maize, millet, Beans, rice, groundnut, guinea corn, animal feed and sesame among others have been lost to the inferno”, Adamu said.
While another victim of the inferno, a rice and beans dealer, Alhaji Muhammadu Ngalda, in a telephone conversation said,” In fact really lost lots of our grains and property including the rice we uploaded few days ago from Ngalda and Gadaka market days worth millions of naira”.
“My friends even lost lots of rice items to the inferno including their milling and grinding processing machines worth millions of naira apart from their large stores of grains stock.
Anothere victim, a beans seller, Alhaji Musa Mai Wake said, “Wallahi, we loss everything. We loss all our items. Our shops were razed down completely.
” Nothing was left. We really don’t know the remote if the fire disaster Uptil now but we suspect it could be as a result of electrical fault,” Musa said
The affected victims, however, called on the state and local governments as well as wealthy individuals to come to their aid with financial and material support to enable them return to their various businesses to earn a living.
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