This is sad! An early morning fire on Sunday ravaged and destroyed 32 out of 72 shops worth N500m located at
St James Church Cathedral Shopping complex, Agbokojo Road, Ogunpa,
Ibadan, Oyo state.
According to reports, the fire started from one of
the single storey shopping complexes, around 2.00 a.m allegedly from an
electrical spark from an unidentifiable shop.
Among the affected
structures were shops, offices and warehouses with full stock of
agricultural produce, chemicals, sprayers, provisions, building
materials, mobile phones accessories, shoe materials, hair extensions
(popularly referred to as weave-ons) and store of a plywood supplier on
the ground floor of the complex.
According to reports,
one of the night security guards and few neighbours living around the
area noticed heavy smoke oozing out from the roof of the shops, and they
attempted to put it out but when they realised that it was beyond human
control, they informed the Fire Service station at Molete, Ibadan.
Intervention, however, did not come on time, leading to the heavy losses by the shop owners.
Representatives
of the state government, Secretary to the Oyo State Government and the
Special Adviser to Governor Abiola Ajimobi on security matters, Olalekan
Alli and Segun Bolarinwa, visited the scene Sunday afternoon to
ascertain the level of destruction first hand.