The Lagos State government has trained and inaugurated Safety and Emergency Marshals to tackle the problem of frequent fire outbreaks ravaging markets in its metropolis.
The state government, through its safety commission, said it has become important to have market representatives who will ensure emergency preparedness in Lagos markets to prevent fire disasters.
Speaking at Obanikoro Market, Lagos Island, the Director of the Lagos State Safety Commission, Mr Lanre Mojola, said the training was designed to inform the participants about hazard identification, prevention, recovery, and response around the markets.
He explained that the past fire disasters had caused the state in terms of compensation to the victims and also caused insurance costs to the market men and women, adding that occurrences have made the agency recalibrate its programme by consistently sensitising the people and training them on how to identify hazards.
“Safety is a collective responsibility, and we have decided to take samples of market men and women and train them on safety principles.
“Today, we have brought together a team of 50 people who were being trained in market safety. They will be the first set of market safety fire wardens in this market.
“We are trying to enlighten them so we do not have any fire disaster.
We are taking them through the causes of fire, the idea of leaving the electric sockets on after work, the placement of the generator inside their shops and the lack of fire extinguishers is improper. But beyond the fire, we still have risks in the market; we have others, like running and flying cables. So, it is a holistic measure of how we can have safer markets and ensure a sustainable market with zero fire incidents going forward in Lagos State.”
Mojola stated that the delay in the constitution of the safety team in the Lagos Island market was due to the need to put the necessary measures in place.
According to him, “It is not difficult getting the people together. We have done this in several smaller markets across the state, but we have delayed the one for Lagos Island because we wanted to get our model right. We have our model right now because we have involved the Locals, CDA, CDC, and the Head of Markets, among others, so we are applying a top-down and bottom-up approach.
“They will be the first line of whistle-blowers to identify some of these infractions, and we empower them to report directly to us. They have become a board where they can also regulate activities in the market, to check against smoking, cooking, use of generators in the markets.’’
