On Wednesday morning, the bustling city of Lagos woke up to the news of a devastating fire at the popular Ladipo Plank Market in Orile.

FIJ learned from a resident of the area that the fire started the night before and extended until Wednesday. Our reporter who visited on Wednesday evening overheard an elderly man telling someone on the phone that the fire started at 12:10 am.

The fire, which began while residents were asleep, had not been completely put out when FIJ visited around 5 pm. It was somewhat raging, although checked by officials of the Lagos State Fire Service.

As sympathisers commiserated with the business owners whose sources of livelihood went down with the fire and onlookers fed their curious eyes on the scene, the firefighters fought the fire with precision. A roaring tractor manned by a firefighter stood on the rubbles and soot, digging up residues of the destruction caused by the inferno.

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Amid the cacophony, scrap pickers rummaged through the rubble made of charred planks and burnt metal and aluminium. They were retrieving what they could from the debris. The charred planks revealed the magnitude of the tragedy that had befallen the market.

The natural hue of the sky around the market had turned a smoky shade. The air was grey, thick and choky. Of the vast expanse of land that housed the market, only a small portion escaped the scorching fury of the fire.

THE CAUSE REMAINS A MYSTERY

This reporter observed that the cause of the fire remained a mystery as residents gathered in small groups, contemplating a sea of endless possibilities. No one could pinpoint the exact cause.

Hammed Jimoh, a businessman whose goods were lost in the inferno, sat beside two other men on a wooden structure. He told FIJ that goods worth millions of naira went up in flames.

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When asked if he could ascertain the cause of the fire, he said, “We really don’t know what happened. No one does. I received a call around 1:30 am from someone who informed me that this place had been set on fire.”

Jimoh said it was surprising, considering that the leaders of the plank market often ensured that the lights were turned off at 8:00 pm until 8:00 am the following day.

“It’s hard to pinpoint the cause. We can’t even say this was what happened,” said Jimoh.

“We have security guards here, but we haven’t seen them. They are yet to show up today.”

When FIJ asked if someone’s cooking might have accidentally started the fire, Tunde, another resident, stated that the plank market was not a residential area.

“People don’t live here,” he said. “It is basically a market. People go home in the evening and come back in the morning, so it could not have been someone’s cooking.”

‘WE LOST GOODS AND PROPERTY WORTH BILLIONS OF NAIRA’

Jimoh said he and others lost belongings worth billions of naira as a result of the fire outbreak.

“Some of the machines we use for filing, cutting and smoothening of wood are worth N2.5 million. Some are worth N1 million.

“All these burnt woods you see here, some of them are N10,000 per one. We have the one of N5000 too. The cheapest type among the planks is worth N3500 per one. Imagine someone who had 2000 pieces of such planks in his shop.

“I can’t give an estimate of the number of shops that were burnt, but the entire market was affected, as the majority of the goods here were destroyed in the fire.

“The fire service has been working tirelessly since morning, and even the local government chairman has visited,” said Jimoh.

‘NO INSURANCE’

FIJ gathered from another business owner, who does not want to be named, that the affected businesses had no insurance coverage.

“Insurance? We don’t have any insurance coverage here. There is nothing like that here. Nobody insured their property,” said the resident.

According to this business owner, this is not the first time Ladipo plank market has experienced a fire incident.

FIJ gathered that the last time the market caught fire was in 2014, but the damage this time is much more severe.

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“It was not as disastrous as this, and we can’t even determine the cause of the fire,” said a resident.

“We had lines 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, and all of them were destroyed in the fire. Some people own as many as 20 shops, with others having 18, 15 and so on. Everything is gone.”

A female resident, whose husband’s shop was affected, told FIJ that the residents tried to douse the fire ahead of the arrival of the fire service but the water was insufficient.

“Before the fire extinguishers came, we fetched and fetched water until there was no longer water in the tank. And there was no light to even pump water. People could not get across to them (the fire service) on time.”