Arsonist set textile shops ablaze as police arrest six security guards

A yet-to-be identified arsonist in the early hours of Wednesday subjected two textile dealers at the popular Ekeoha/Shopping to sorrow as goods worth millions of naira were engulfed in an inferno.

The shop owners were identified as MF 1A and KH 23up said to belong to Mr. Hillary Asogwa from Nsukka in Enugu State and Mr. Peter from Neni in Anambra state.

It was gathered that six security guards said to be on duty around the area have been arrested and detained for questioning at Ndiegoro Police Division under whose jurisdiction the market is located.

While the traders of the affected lines; zone 3 and 6 respectively were yet to ascertain the cause of the inferno, sources in the Abia State Fire Service, Aba attributed it to a “willful” or deliberate act by the perpetrators.

The shop owners who were overwhelmed with emotion and could not speak to our reporter who visited the scene.

The arsonist was said to have set ablaze KH 23up on fire and later went to set MF 1A on fire, thinking that it was the parking store of the owner of shop KH 23up.

While shop KH 23up is stocked with lycra material, shop MF 1A is stocked with lace materials.

Police from Ndiegoro Division who led a team of officers were said to have started investigating the matter at the time of this report.

Sources told our reporter that the arsonist broke a transparent glass on top of the shops before setting the shops ablaze using fuel and lighter to perpetuate the evil act.

“The shop at MF 1A just offloaded 15 giant bale of laces that was delivered in a 20ft container, while the shop owner of KH 23up recently brought back some goods which are yet to be touched. From what happened, the shop owner of MF 1A is just unfortunate to have suffered such a huge loss. We don’t think that he was a target. He became a victim because his shop is closer to the shop of the man in KH 23up. We don’t use electricity here. Tell me how the two different shops could just get burnt. The person that did this targeted the owner of shop KH23up who has a parking store at MF2A, but the person wrongly set MF 1A ablaze,” a source at the market disclosed.

Efforts to get the reaction of the Aba Fire Chief, Mr. Okezie Uche failed, but a source at the station who claimed to be part of the team that attended to the fire said that the cause of the fire could not be far from what he described as “willful act”.

The source who said that the timely intervention of their men saved billions of goods and the traders market from huge loss, however lamented construction of shops on emergency routes and shoddy construction job in the market which he said delayed them from accessing the zone and the shops being gutted by fire.

“We got to the market after we got calls informing us about the fire outbreak at about 4am which we attended to until about 7:30am. But the problem that we encountered is that our car cannot enter the market because of the type of construction work and building of shops in the market. Almost all the fire routes in the market have been blocked with one structure or the other.

“The security men on duty could not even easily indentify the location of the inferno. That also delayed the rate of attending to the fire. But the good news is that we were able to save goods worth billions of naira from being consumed in the inferno.”

Speaking to newsmen, the caretaker chairman of Eke-Oha Shopping Centre, Mr. Friday Dimiri said: “As at 3am this morning, I got a distress call from the security men here about fire outbreak in the market. I quickly called the firefighters and also got the police involved to avoid theft. I rushed down here with my team and we have been here doing the most we can to calm things down here. The fire men with most of us who came earlier and with the help of God almighty helped in making sure that the fire didn’t escalate to other parts of the market.

“The police in their own investigation have arrested the security men who serve here to know the reality of the whole incident. The worth of goods damaged by the fire cannot be ascertained yet as proper estimate with the owners have not been done. We will cooperate with the police to get to the bottom of the whole incident.”