A fire incident has burnt 19 shops containing 1,900 bags of assorted grains in Gombi Market, Adamawa State.
Secretary of the market, Mallam Umar Nyalli said the incident was caused by an unknown smoker who threw a stick of cigarette at a heap of waste materials close to the shops which started the fire.
Nyalli said, businesses of the 19 owners of the shops were paralysed even as the financial value of the destroyed grains cannot be quantified at the moment.
“We lost bags of maize, groundnuts, guinea corn, sesame seeds, beans and tamarin fruits to the inferno,” he stated and called on governments at all levels to come to their aid.
Earlier, the state deputy governor, Prof Kaletapwa George Farauta, commiserated with the traders, whose goods were destroyed on behalf of the state government.
Farauta asked the traders to accept the incident in good faith, believing that God would restore their businesses.
She described the incident as a huge loss to the entire state in terms of revenue generation.
The deputy governor called on the state government to enlighten citizens to shy away from improper handling of fire within their domain.
The district head of Gombi, Alhaji Usman Sarki Fada, thanked the state government for consoling the victims of the fire disaster.
