A trader at Ita-Nma Market, Ilorin in Kwara State which was gutted by fire on Friday, Alhaja Bola Iya Abu, said she lost all her life savings to the incident.
Alhaja Bola who spoke with LEADERSHIP Sunday at the scene of the fire incident yesterday said she only restocked her shop with crates of soft drinks on Wednesday before the fire outbreak occurred on Friday’s night.
Sobering, the woman said she lost all the goods in her shop including three deep freezers to the inferno.
She appealed to Kwara State government and community spirited individuals to come to her aid as she was left with nothing after the fire incident.
The fire incident which occurred at few minutes to 10pm on Friday consumed seven shops and property worth millions of naira in the popular Ilorin market.
The swift intervention of the men of Kwara State Fire Service curtailed the spread of the raging fire to the remaining over 200 shops in the market.
The vice chairman of the Livestock Sellers Association at Ita-Nma market, Alh Yakub Oloso, lamented the fire incident and appealed for government’s assistance.
“We were called around 8 p.m. after closing hour yesterday ( Friday ) that our animal stalls were on fire. We thank the Fire Service because they came around 9 p.m., but before then, a lot of goods had been damaged, including our animals, like goats. We, therefore, beg the government to have mercy upon us,”he said.
Another victim, Saliu Kelebe, solicited the state government’s assistance for the victims, saying, “the loss is too much, we beg the government to come to our aid”.
The spokesman of Kwara State Fire Service, Hassan Adekunle, confirmed the incident in a statement on Saturday.
Adekunle said the swift intervention of the firefighters saved 269 shops, limiting the devastating damages to only seven shops.
He said:” On Friday, 10 January 2025, at about 21:36 hours, the Kwara State Fire Service received a distress call reporting a fire outbreak at Olusola Saraki Market, Ita-Amo, Ilorin.
“Our firefighters promptly deployed to the scene and discovered multiple shops ablaze in a market comprising 276 shops. Through swift intervention,our team successfully contained the inferno, limiting the damage to only seven shops and saving 269 others. The affected shops included meat vendors, clothing material shops, and provision stores.
“Preliminary investigations revealed that the incident might have been caused by a power surge following the fluctuating power supply from the Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company (IBEDC), as reported by the market’s security personnel.”
