‘Good Friday’ holiday was gloomy for some traders of Binukonu Ultra-Modern Market, in the Ojota area of Lagos, as recounted their losses in a recent fire incident. NAN reports that the fire, on March 23, destroyed 30 stalls and goods worth millions of naira. It was said to be the third time the market would go up in flames.
An affected trader, Veronica Ehveve, disclosed she lost goods worth over N1 million in the inferno.
“The fire affected me a lot because I just bought my goods on March 22 and by the next day everything just got burnt.
“Many traders had just borrowed money from the cooperatives and everything is gone,” she said.
Ehveve said she had no insurance and gave a passionate plea for government assistance.
“We want the government to help us to quickly rebuild this place which will make us leave where we are and go back to our stalls; we also need financial assistance,” she said.
Another trader, Godfrey Eboh, a popular cosmetics trader, said he lost three shops and goods worth at least N3 million in the blaze.
Eboh said: “It was not easy for me recovering from the fire incident, I had borrowed money from different sources to make my business grow when the incident happened.
“I own three shops, I use two for cosmetics and one for weavon and attachments, I lost goods worth N3million in 2015 fire incident and I also lost goods worth N3million during last Friday’s fire,” he said.
Afolabi Shofola, the chairman of Kosofe Local Government Area which controls the market, said Governor Akinwunmi Ambode would be appealed to on assisting the affected traders.
“We will make a passionate appeal to the state government to come to the aid of the traders.
“I am also going to make it mandatory for all our markets to be insured,” the report quoted Sofola as saying.
