Goods worth millions of naira and bundles of N1,000 bills kept in a safe have been lost in an early morning fire that gutted five shops in Sharp Corner, Mararaba, Nasarawa state.
Mararaba is one of the closest Communities, near Abuja, the Nation’s capital.
The inferno, eye witnesses told Blueprint started around 2am on Tuesday in a mobile phone repairer’s shop, before spreading to four other shops within the apartment stores.
When Blueprint visited the scene, residents were seen loading some recovered items from one of the shops into a van, even as scavengers were seen scrambling for some of the goods.
In a chat with Blueprint, the phone repairer, who simply identified himself as David, said that, though the fire started from his shop, he could not pin point what must have triggered it.
He lamented the loss of mobile phones and electronic devices belonging to his customers in the inferno, but ruled out the restoration of public power supply as the cause of the inferno, alleging that he made use of a generator in running his business the previous day and “did not change over to NEPA”.
“I am just confused because the phones destroyed in the shop are valuable. I didn’t save a single item from the shop; everything was just burnt to ashes. I used generator to work yesterday, so I am surprised that people are saying that the cause of the fire is the light that was restored in the night. I used generator throughout yesterday and did not change over before leaving the shop.
“I even feel more pity for my neighbours because they just brought goods worth millions of naira to sale to customers this Christmas. The four other shops are owned by dealers on provisions, computer services, chemicals, baking products, respectively. I don’t even know what to say to them as the fire started from my shop,” he said.
