PICTORIAL: Fire Guts 13 Shops, Multi-million Naira Goods In Lagos’ Computer Village

A midnight fire ripped through a building affecting 13 shops at Somoye Ogundairo Street in Computer Village, Ikeja, Lagos State, destroying goods worth millions of naira, witnesses said on Tuesday.

The blaze, which started around 1 a.m., left the top floor of the plaza badly damaged. Eyewitnesses said no lives were lost, but shop owners suffered heavy losses, with laptops and other electronic gadgets consumed by the flames.

A shop owner, Chuks Onowu, said: “It was a terrible experience. My office was completely affected. We had just offloaded goods yesterday, and everything was destroyed in the fire.

“We dont leave here, so early hours of the day, I received a SoS call from security officials that the plaza, the building where our goods are in particular, was on fire. So, we started racing to this place. I got here a few minutes past 2am, I was here when the inferno was up.

“And I can attest that the men of the state fire service, the police the LASEMA came. But the challenge we had was that the offices were locked. We don’t have access to the offices. So, the effort to break this office was not possible. It was a difficult one, so it was a devastating experience. My office is here, it affected everything. Yesterday, we offloaded goods and the worth of good destroyed cannot be estimated for now because one need to put our heads together to actually estimate exactly what we have. It’s a terrible experience.”

Residents reported hearing a loud explosion before the fire spread rapidly. Firefighters struggled to gain access to the locked complex and had to break through the roof to contain the inferno.

Another witness, Olumide Kareem, said sparks were seen on the top floor shortly after electricity was restored to the building. “Our security personnel noticed the sparks and tried to alert stakeholders, but before they could respond, the fire was out of control,” he said.

Another eyewitness said a trader who owned two shops in the plaza lost all his goods in the fire. “He could not salvage a single item. All his laptops were destroyed,” the witness explained.

“I was standing here watching the fire. We couldn’t get close to the building. The firefighters who arrived had to use a ladder to access the roof, as no one could gain entry into the complex. I sleep in one of the plazas in Computer Village. We were already asleep when the sound of the explosion woke us up,” the witness recounted.

Emergency officials from the Lagos State Fire Service and the Lagos State Emergency Management Agency (LASEMA) arrived about 45 minutes after the fire began. LASEMA said investigations were underway to determine the cause of the incident.

The building has since been cordoned off as authorities assess the extent of damage.

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