According to Nigeria's Federal Fire Service(FFS), the country has lost and continue to lose a lot. This is Perhaps, why apart from scores of lives that were lost, over N5 trillion was also lost to inferno between 2013 and 2018.
This is was contained in an official statistics disclosed by the Service (FFS) during the 2018 Fire Fighters Day in held in Abuja. Of course, the losses also preclude those that were not reported to the Service.
The statement reads in part "The Federal Fire Service was established by the Federal Fire Prevention and Control Act of 1974 with a mandate to extinguish, control and prevent fire, carry out search and rescue operations, save lives, property and environment, including carrying out humanitarian services. As such, there is no gainsaying to the fact that fire incidents contributed to the current wave of insecurity as many of those affected were not only displaced but lost their sources of employment and income.
It was gathered that, for the past 30 years, the Service existed without appropriate fire-fighting equipment at the Federal level until recently, the President Muhammad Buhari led Administration procured some State of the Arts equipment for the Service. While the situation at the Federal level has been improved, the State Fire Services(SFS) literally existed only in the imagination of their State Governors.
It is not far from memory that in the past one month, there have been at least 25 serious fire incidents but none gripped the nation like that of Wednesday, October 16 inferno caused by a fuel tanker at Upper Iweka and Ochanja Market, Onitsha, Anambra State. Within a space of 48 hours, another petrol tanker fire occurred at Omagba Phase 2, while there were also incidents (though the tankers didn’t go up in flames) at Nnewi, Nteje and Agulu respectively within the same state.
All these aside from the other incidents recorded across the country within the period. Just this week, eight people were roasted to death in a tanker explosion at the Felele area of Lokoja, the Kogi state capital. In 2017, there was a fire outbreak in Anambra state but the Federal Fire Fighters from Asaba station in Delta state were able to contain the fire in spite of having to travel over a considerable distance from Asaba to Onitsha.
The Controller-General of the Federal Fire Service, CGF Ibrahim Alhaji Liman said "On October 16, the situation was different for traders at the Ochanja Market in Onitsha due to lack of understanding by some motorists that an emergency vehicle always has the “right of way”. In fact, some motorists were competing for space with the Fire Fighting truck/personnel from Asaba.
The CGF solicited for the support of all and sundry especially State Governors to come to the aid of the Service. He also called on Nigerians to cooperate with the Service in its efforts to prevent the occurrence of fire incidents as well as when on operation to quench an inferno.
