By Patrick Obia
Goods worth millions of Naira were on Sunday 20th November 2022, destroyed by a fire that razed down seven shops in a shopping complex in Abouchiche, the capital of Bekwarra Local Government Area of Cross River State.
The cause of the fire is not ascertained by eyewitnesses and onlookers at the time of this report but said started in the noon hours.
A Facebook user and indigene of Bekwarra, Tom Alims decried the none functional Fire Service in the LGA, positing that at least some properties would have been saved.
Tom said: “Fire outbreak at Abuochiche, Bekwarra LGA earlier today razed down an entire shopping complex (one of the busiest shopping complexes) in Abuochiche destroying goods of different business owners worth millions of Naira.”
He added: “On a day like today, one wonders why the Government is so wicked to citizens that the Fire Service can not be functional enough to come to the rescue and reduce the impact of losses at times like this.”
This is coming less than two months after not less than six shops were engulfed by an unknown fire on October 4, 2022, at Harbor junction (Calabar depot), Calabar.
Similarly, a section of one of the most popular markets in the city of Calabar, Ika Ika Oqua better known as Marian market was gutted by fire in the wee hours of Tuesday 30 August 2022.
Also, some residents of Essien Street in Calabar South Local Government Area on January 26, 2022, counted their losses as a strange fire rendered them homeless.
This followed suit as the Department of Continuous Education and Development Studies in the University of Calabar was on Wednesday, 9 February 2022 gutted by fire.
It was three weeks after the Department of Mathematics, in the same varsity, was razed down on Sunday, 30 January 2022.
On Sunday, 6 February 2022, the Department of International Relations also was not spared.
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