Fire Outbreak Costs Nigeria N6trn In 5 Years

The president of Fire Disaster Prevention and Safety Awareness Association of Nigeria, Badanga Ahmed Lamidi, who disclosed this in an exclusive interview with LEADERSHIP Sunday, said fire outbreaks in the country have become a perennial problem, with many reported cases happening at the federal state levels.

Lamidi stressed that the frequent fire outbreak in Nigeria, no doubt, poses serious threat to the national economy, as it leaves enormous material damage, injury to persons and disruption of economic and commercial activities of the people affected.

He continued: “The economic implications of fire outbreaks to investment and growth of the nation cannot be over emphasized. The high incident rate of market fire in particular has serious economic consequences of depriving trader’s means of livelihood and threatening the survival of several market men and women who expectedly were breadwinners of their families not to talk of huge investment loss through other means such as industrial fires, oil and gas and other national asset”.

He observed that the present effort in containing fire outbreaks is significantly challenged.

Lamidi observed that though at the federal level, there is tremendous improvement in the funding and equipment holding of the federal fire service, the present administration under President Muhammadu Buhari has for the first time invested substantially in the infrastructure and equipment for the federal Fire service.

He said, “With the recent delivery of the first batch of firefighting trucks to the federal fire service out of about 23 trucks being expected is no doubt a milestone achievement in the history of Fire Service.