A five-year-old boy has been reportedly killed in a fire outbreak at the Muda Lawal Market in Bauchi metropolis.
We also learnt that properties worth millions of Naira were destroyed.
The Chairman of the market, Baba Magaji, who confirmed the incident to journalists, said that the actual cause of the fire could not be immediately ascertained.
He, however, said that according to eyewitness reports, the fire was caused by an electrical fault in a tricycle that was parked close to a truck carrying mattresses.
Magaji said that a section of the market was destroyed, adding that the incident happened at the middle of the market where there are a lot of trading activities.
He said that the fire was eventually put out by the officials of fire service in the state who came to the scene of the incident as security were equally deployed to the area to maintain law and order.
The Chairman said:
“The fire started from a truck carrying mattresses that parked in the market since yesterday. Most of the eyewitnesses said that there a Keke Napep that parked closed to the truck, started the fire as a result of an electric spark”
“We recorded huge losses in the fire outbreak, a five year old boy who was sleeping in one of the shops in the market during the fire incident died.
“So far, 17 shops, 8 cars , 11 motorcycles and 1 Keke Napep were burnt in the inferno. Some of the youths were throwing stones at the vehicle of the fire service because they they were angry they came late to the scene of incident. It took the intervention of the security agents to calm the situation.”
Efforts to get a confirmation from the Police Public Relations Officer, Bauchi State Command, Kamal Abubakar, a Deputy Superintendent of Police, were not successful as several calls made to his mobile phone were not picked as at the time of filing this report.
