Moshood Adebayo
Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, has ordered that the cause of popular Amu Plank Market fire incident in Mushin area be investigated.
The governor, who gave the order yesterday when he visited the market that was razed by fire on Friday, also allayed the fears of the traders that the government would take over the market.
He assured the victims of the fire incident that gutted about 11 houses and goods worth over N10 billion of his administration’s assistance, adding that the government will help to rebuild the market.
The traders, who spoke at separate interviews appealed to the governor to support them to go back to their businesses and help in rebuilding the market.
Sanwo-Olu, who was accompanied by his deputy, Femi Hamzat and members of his cabinet, said relevant government agencies had been mobilised to take inventory of the situation.
The governor, who lamented the huge losses recorded in the market inferno, said: “This is rather unfortunate incident, nobody ever imagined this amount of destruction to happen in this market. We will investigate the remote causes of this fire incident so that we can plan in future how to forestall incident like this.
‘’After the Lagos State Emergency Agency (LASEMA) and other agencies have finished their physical process we will come back with Ministry of Physical Planning to take inventory of the various store owners in this place and also sit with our market leaders to see what kind of lasting solution we can bring about in markets like this.
“We will do enumeration of the houses affected by the fire. Then the government will go back and see what support it can render.
“We thank God no life was lost. Because we cannot equate the life of anybody to any amount of goods and services.”