A midnight fire incident has destroyed goods worth millions of naira in at least 25 shops at the popular Araromi Spare Parts Market in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital.
Metro gathered that the incident occurred around 2am on Saturday as a result of the indiscriminate burning of refuse.
One of the spare parts sellers, Olajide Ige, told our correspondent on the phone that about 10 shops were affected and goods worth millions of naira were razed.
However, the General Manager, Oyo State Fire Service, Rev. Canon Akinyinka, who confirmed the incident in a telephone interview with the News Agency of Nigeria on Saturday in Ibadan, said 25 shops were razed.
Akinyinka said the service got a call about the incident around 2:30 am through one Mr Soliu and immediately deployed personnel to the place to quench the fire.
“The incident was caused by a careless burning of refuse, they refused to put off the burning refuse before leaving the shop and it escalated.
“The impression they gave us initially was that around 45 shops were affected but when we got there, we discovered that 25 shops were affected by the fire incident,” Akinyinka said.
He further said his men were able to extinguish the fire around 5.00 a.m. on Saturday and no life was lost in the incident.
