Fire still rages at Customs warehouse four days after

Public Relations Officer, Federal Operations Unit (FOU), Zone ‘A’ of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) Uche Ejesieme has said that efforts are still ongoing to contain the fire which engulfed the Customs warehouse where seized goods are kept and one of the buildings housing the Customs Training College in Ikeja on Friday.

Goods including bales of second hand clothing, used female shoes and bags, used tyres, vegetable oils and other general goods worth millions of naira were on Friday at about 10pm destroyed when fire gutted the warehouse.

Ejeseieme told SHIPS & PORTS DAILY yesterday that officials of the Lagos State Emergency Management Agency (LASEMA) and Lagos State Fire Service as at press time were still at the scene of the incident trying to completely put off the fire to keep it from spreading to other areas.

He said an interim report from LASEMA and Lagos State Fire Service is still being awaited to ascertain the cause of the fire.

“As we speak, the smoke is still billowing out heavily and they are still at the site trying to completely put off the fire.

“What is important to us is to put the fire off first to ensure that this thing is completely contained so that it will not snowball into other areas.

“The cause of the incident cannot be ascertained for now otherwise we would just be wallowing in mere speculation because we need to await the report of LASEMA and Lagos State Fire Service so to get a clue as per what caused the inferno,” he said.

The Customs spokesman said the cost of items destroyed in the inferno could also not be ascertained until after an audit of the facility.

He added that items and materials that were being delivered to Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps in Borno State which were kept in a different wing of the warehouse in line with the Presidential directive were not affected, adding that the unit had so far delivered almost 90% of the items.