Breaking: Mysterious fire razes Potiskum grains market in early hours of Friday

By Sadiq Abubakar Maiduguri

Mysterious fire has razed down Potiskum grains market in Yobe State, destroying grains and other food items worth millions of naira.

Residents told our Correspondent on phone that the fire disaster began as early as around 3:00 am which attracted the attention of the State Fire Service men who immediately rushed to the market to put off the fire.

The Potiskum fire service fighters were also joined by their Nangere fire service counterparts to control the situation.

Malam Adamu Fiika, a maize seller who is one of the grains shop owners said, “I was sleeping when I heard my phone ringing and woke up to pick the phone.

“On picking the call, I was shocked to hear that the grains market we left and closed Thursday night was on fire and had razed down many shops,.

“This made me to quickly dress up and rush to the market to see things for myself where I even met some of my colleagues already at the market.

“In fact, we actually lost lots of property and foodstuff worth hundreds of millions of naira as thousands of bags of maize, millet, beans, rice, groundnut, guinea corn, animal feed and sesame among others have been lost to the inferno”, Adamu said.

While another victim of the inferno and Rice and Beans dealer, Alhaji Muhammadu Ngalda on telephone conversation said,” In fact really lost lots of our grains a d property including the rice we uploaded few days ago from Ngalda and Gadaka market days worth millions of naira”.

“My friends even lost lots of rice items to the inferno including their Milling, Grinding and other Rice and Grains Processing Machines worth millions of naira apart from their large stores of grains stock.

However, all the victims interviewed on telephone this Friday morning called in the state and local governments as well as wealthy individuals to come to their aid with financial and material support to enable them return to their various businesses to earn a living as this monumental period .

One of the victims, a beans seller/dealer, Alhaji Musa Mai Wake said, “Wallahi, we loss everything. We loss all our items. Our shops were razed down completely.

“Nothing was left. We really don’t know the remote if the fire disaster Uptil now but we suspect it could be as a result of electrical fault,” Musa said