Fire outbreak yesterday disrupted banking services for over three hours at the head office of Ecobank Nigeria Limited on Ahmadu Bello Way, Lagos.
The fire, according to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), started at 8.30a.m. A witness, Mr. Malachy Okoli, said the fire started when a tanker was discharging diesel into the bank’s fuel dump. Okoli added that staff of some commercial banks around Ecobank used their fire extinguishers to contain the fire before the arrival of officials the Federal Fire Service. Some youths were seeing around the place scooping diesel from the gutter not minding the risk, while several kiosks around the bank were destroyed by the inferno.
The Deputy Commanding Officer, Lagos Command, Federal Fire Service, Ganiyu Olayiwola, said the bank alerted the command about 8.55a.m. He said: “We quickly alerted our people and we were able to contain the fire.
The first thing we did was to evacuate all the personnel and secured the area so that we would be able to perform our work effectively.”
The Director of Operations, Lagos State Emergency Management Agency (LASEMA), Mr. Femi Giwa, said the agency was alerted about 8.55a.m. He said: “About 8.55a.m., we got a distress call at the Lagos State command and control centre concerning an inferno within the Ecobank head office. We activated our response and mobilised our respondents to the scene of the incident.” Giwa said officials of the agency discovered a tanker with 33,000 litres of diesel, while trans-loading caught fire.
“We need to appreciate the Lagos State Fire Service, the Federal Fire Service and LASEMA Response Unit, the Ecobank Fire unit, UBA fire unit, Julius Berger and others for their efforts. A representative of Ecobank, Mr. Tunde Dawodu, said the fire started about 8.40a.m., when a tanker that came to supply diesel apparently caught fire. He said: “Immediately we activated the emergency protocol and all staff were evacuated from the building even though it did not affect the main building.”
New Telegraph
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