Romanus Ugwu, Abuja

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has vowed to unravel the circumstances that resulted in the fire incident that gutted an annex of its headquarters in Abuja on Friday morning, assuring however that the damage was very minimal.

For the intervention of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Fire Service, the headquarters of the electoral umpire would have been reduced to rubbles by the fire incident that completely razed the building housing the Election and Party Monitoring Department and the Media Centre before it was extinguished.

Only recently, fire outbreaks have continued to wreak havoc following such incidences at the Accountant General office popularly called Treasury House and the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) all located in the FCT Abuja.

However, reacting to the incident while speaking to newsmen, National Commissioner and Chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee, Festus Okoye, blamed the fire outbreak on electrical surge, assuring that there was however no cause for alarm.

“Some of our critical staff in the office, noticed that fire had started from the office of the Director of Election and Party Monitoring,” he explained, adding: “They rushed off and alerted the fire service, but our own internal firemen had responded before the arrival of the Fire Service and they were able to put off the fire. It started around 11.30am and you could see that it did not get to the main building of the headquarters. The main building is intact.”

While quantifying the damage, Okoye said: “We lost some of our photocopiers, computers and documents relating to political party activities. But, they are mostly correspondences, constitutions, manifestos and files relating to political parties. The critical documents relating to our activities with the political parties were not affected because they have been moved out even before the incident. There is no cause for alarm,” he assured.

On the cause of the fire outbreak, he said: “The fire service people are here and have carried out some preliminary investigations and it has something to do with an electrical challenge. Only on Thursday this week, the secretary of the Commission issued a circular and directive to all our offices including the National headquarters relating to electrical issues and ensuring that all our facilities are safe.”

He also allayed the fears of the political parties that the outbreak will affect party activities, stressing: “They should not entertain any fear. Almost every National Commission in this commission has the manifestos, constitutions and every other thing relating to political parties. We have moved the files because the director in charge of party monitoring is also relocating from his office. The documents consumed by the inferno are just correspondences. The main documents are secured and duplicated at the legal department.”

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In a very compact statement he signed and issued later to give further details to the inferno, Okoye wrote: “At 11.30am today, April 17, 2020, a fire outbreak occurred at a section of the building housing the Election and Party Monitoring Department and the Media Centre. The building is an annex, detached from the main building of the INEC’s headquarters.

“Fire fighters attached to the Commission swiftly responded to contain the inferno and they were later joined by their colleagues from the Federal Fire Service headquarters in the FCT. The fire was extinguished within a short period of time and did not cause any substantial damage to the building.

“Apart from some office furniture and equipment, nothing sensitive was destroyed. Reports of party primaries and conventions are intact. The campaign finance database is also not affected.

“The incident will therefore not affect the administrative or technical operations of the Commission in any way. Meanwhile, investigation into the cause(s) of the fire incident has commenced,” he revealed in the statement.

Reacting equally to the incident in a chat with newsmen, FCT Controller, Fire Service, Braimoh Momoh, explained that his office had received distress call from the commission, requesting for assistance to fight the fire.

“Before we got here, our men that are on ground had started fighting the fire and we joined to quickly bring the situation under control. We had deployed six fire trucks as well as an ambulance but good enough no casualty was recorded.

“I can tell you that the level of damage is so minimal and small. By the time you take it at the roof level, you will be thinking that the situation is so grievous, but it was because of the PVC used for the ceiling. I can confirm to you that the level of damage is so small. The firemen were able to respond on time here to ensure that they save the situation otherwise the whole of the complex would have been razed down. Investigation into the cause of the incident is still on. Snapshots have been taken for investigation analysis,” he said.

Asked if the political parties should entertain any fear, the President Inter Party Advisory Council (IPAC), Peter Ameh said: “I don’t think that at this level, with the 21st century Information Technology Unit (ITU) policy that INEC has make the mistake of not backing up any document.

“I am sure that the commission may have stored the sensitive documents into an information server system for proper retrieval. Let us also use this opportunity to advice other establishments to be cautious with the appliances in their offices. The recurring fire outbreak is not good for the country to avoid suspicion and insinuations,” he quipped.