Fire broke out at Aleshinloye Market in Ibadan Oyo state on Tuesday night, directly opposite a functional firefighting station, however it reportedly have no fire equipment in terms of water to combat the fire with.

According to eyewitnesses, Sweetco, a private company had come to the rescue of the market after the fire service could not provide efficient service for the market.

Chairman Oyo state fire service and special adviser to the governor on fire services, Mr Adebayo Akinwande speaks to journalists on the fire incident, denying the allegations of lack of infrastructure while he warned people to desist from destroying tax payers money when such occurrence happen.

Akinwande who spoke in Yoruba language during the interview said: “by the time the fire service were called, they didn’t know the intensity of the fire and things were already out of hands.

“We brought one fire service truck at first and later increased it to five trucks apart from independent water tankers that we paid to supply us water, in order not to run out of water while putting out the fire.”

He urged citizens to cooperate with the government in order to be served well and not destroyed the peoples’ property.

In his words: “I want to implore the citizens, government can’t do it alone , especially those affected that the next thing is not to destroy government properties like the fire truck, those things being destroyed are tax payers properties”

On the allegation of empty trucks and lack of service from the fire fighter, he denied it, stating that there was active participation from the fire service team and have to buy water from independent water service while he acknowledge the effort of two privates fire company that worked alongside with them.

“The human and infrastructure services were actively at work, it was the human service placed at the market that informed the fire service and not the marketers, if it were to be in the afternoon, there may be likelihood of dead people.

“Even the governor has given us the go ahead to do everything in our capability to ensure safety.” He added

Chairman Ibadan South West Local government Mr Kehinde Adeyemi speaks on the efforts of the government to give aids to the affected

“It is quite unfortunate that this happen at this particular time and it is not that, it has to happen at any time at all, but we all know how the economy of the country is and for people to lose their means of livelihood here, is quite unfortunate.

“All I just want to tell the people that are affected, is that the government has their backs and sympathize with them.

“The government is going to come to their aid, is going to go back to the drawing board to make sure we do the right, thing with the cooperation of the people.”

When questioned on the numbers of fatality and what causes the fire outbreak, he replied that no life was involved while cautioning people on spreading false information.

“We should restrain ourselves from carrying unnecessary rumor, there was no life loss. And I pray to God that those who lose their property will not lead to them losing their life.

 ‘We are begging the people here to cooperate with the government, their lost and effort will not go in vain, but please don’t let put blame on anybody, let us just believe it is the work of nature.

“We can’t lay our fingers on the cause of the amount of shops affected but the security operatives are on the ground trying to figure out what happen, so this will enable us to prepare in case of the future.” He emphasized.

One of the shops’ owner in the market, Alhaji T. Bello of TY Bello ventures revealed she has more than 10 shops and all got burnt overnight. According to the plastic merchant, she lost over 50m worth of goods to the inferno.

By: Adeoye Olorunseun Elizabeth