Fire guts popular Moniya market in Ibadan

Goods and property worth millions of naira have been lost to the fire incident at the popular Moniya market in Akinyele local government area of Oyo state.

The incident happened in the early hours of Monday at precisely 12:27 am affected no fewer than 17 shops, containers and adjoining buildings

It was gathered that goods worth millions of naira were stored in the affected shops.

In their separate accounts of the incident, the Baba Loja of Moniya Garage and Chairman of the Garage, Kolawole Balogun and Saliu Bello said they were alerted of the incident around 12:30 am.

Balogun said, “I moved to the scene of the incident immediately after I received a phone call. I can confirm to you that goods and property worth millions have been lost to the incident.”

In his account, Bello said, “Apart from goods, cash worth millions of naira were also destroyed. You know some market men and women, sometimes, kept their money in the shops while going home.”

Some of the victims, Yetumde Musa, Ajetunmobi Idowu, Olaide Badmus, Balogun Sulaimon, and Ajetunmobi Kolawole, who also spoke with our correspondent called on the government to come to their aid.

In his account, the General Manager, Oyo State Fire Services, Akinyemi Akinyinka said, “The fire incident was reported to the Agency at exactly 00:27hrs and Mr Adelola that there’s shops on fire at Moniya Garage,oja Agbe, Ibadan.

“Immediately, the personnel of this Agency led by ACFS Oyedeji was deployed to the scene of the incident. On getting to the address above, it was discovered to be rows of shops and container shops met well alight.

“We quickly Swift in into action and we were able to curtail the fire from where we met it and restrict it from spreading to all nearby shops and other properties.

“Properties worth millions of naira was destroyed and billions of properties were saved by the Agency personnel lives were lost.

“However, I want to advise our people in Oyo State that they should handle fire with care to avoid fire incidents.

The remote cause of the fire incident was traced to the plugging of electrical appliances unattended to”

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