FCT Fire Service Claims It ‘Salvaged’ Karimo Market But Video Proves Otherwise

The popular Karimo Market in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, was gutted by fire in the early hours of Thursday.

According to the Federal Capital Territory Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), its firemen salvaged the situation but videos in circulation on social media prove otherwise.

Speaking to THE WHISTLER, an official of FEMA, Florence Wenegieme, said the cause of the fire and level of damage has yet to be ascertained.

However, our correspondent gathered that goods worth millions of naira may have been destroyed in the poplar market located after the Life Camp Junction, along the Gwagwa-Karimo Way, off Jabi, Airport Road.

The market which has existed for more than twenty years is popular for buying and selling of thrift clothes.

Wenegieme told THE WHISTLER in a telephone interview that FEMA got a distress call at about 12:30 am notifying them about the fire outbreak.

“What happened was that we the FCT management emergency agency (FEMA) the coordinating agency received a distress call at about 12:30 am. Immediately, we headed for Karimo.

“We have four stations around Karimo, so we activated the stations, including those of NEMA, Federal Fire Service, and they were all on ground.”

She said men of the Civil Defence, Nigeria Police, and other military personnel also rushed to the scene to help put out the fire.

“The cause of the fire is not yet identified, but the truth is that the high-tension wire has no light. There not been any light there for some months now, so it couldn’t have been an electrical fault. There’s no transformer and the high tension is intact.”

Wenegieme noted that no life was lost to the incident: “We were able to salvage the situation so the fire will not extend to other shops. The good thing is that we are happy about two things, we are happy that there was no loss of lives and they were able to call 112 the emergency number, which was what saved the situation otherwise a lot of shops would have been affected.”

On the number of shops affected, she said, “We don’t know yet, we are coming back for post-disaster assessment. The immediate thing we wanted to do was to save lives and property.

“We have been able to identify the chairman of the market and members of his excos, so when we come back for the post-disaster assessment, we will call them, and then we will get to know how many shops were affected and the nature of things they sell,” she added.

In July 2021, the market also went up in flames during which over 200 stalls were reportedly destroyed.