AUTO battery sellers are lamenting their losses in the fire which gutted their shops and a warehouse three days ago.
The fire also affected the Ikeja Post Office fence.
An eyewitness, Ayo, said the fire fighters got to the scene on time, adding that they prevented it from spreading to other buildings.
“The fire fighters tried. To avoid shortage of water, they passed their hose to the borehole in the Post Office premises. Shop owners and sympathisers also salvaged valuables,” he said.
“I couldn’t take anything,” said Yusuf Shittu, trader, who lost everything in his shop.
He said: “I lost 36 car batteries and N10, 000 to the fire. I slept in front of my burnt shop because I couldn’t afford to cry in the presence of his wife. I have been searching the debris for my National Identity Card and the money but I haven’t found them. So many things went with the fire. It is my own I know. The tyre warehouse was burnt completely. Where will they start from? This has made people to lock their shops. I just hinted my wife on phone that my shop was burnt. Even the mobile phone I seized from someone who owed me got burnt. I am now the debtor. I think I prefer robbery to fire.”
A trader, Chinedu, who sells radiator, said they were all outside their shops when the incident happened, adding: “I couldn’t go home. I watched my shop burn. It is very painful. We were in front of our shops ready to go home until we saw smoke from our direction. We thought it was a small thing until we moved closer. Everywhere was smoke logged. Something else would have happened if we entered. I pray God help us because no human can at this moment when everyone is broke.”
A printer, Larry, said he couldn’t pick anything from his store.
“The way things happen in life. All my customers’ job is gone. I don’t know how to tell them. I don’t know if I have to bring all of them to see my burnt shop. If we weren’t there, it is one thing but we were outside. I can’t think straight,” he said.
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