By Rotimi Ojomoyela

As traders at a section of the Oja Oba market in Ado Ekiti, Ekiti state capital, count their loses over the Tuesday night inferno, some of them are alleging that unknown arsonists would have carried out the act.

The owners of the over 30 lock up stalls, who claimed that property worth millions of naira was lost to the fire, said the building housing the stalls would have been attacked by politicians because the building belonged to a top politician in the State.

Recounting how the incident happened, the Chairman of the Ekiti State Youth Traders’ Association, Opeyemi Fakayode, said it started at about 7.30 pm when the security guard had already arrived.

He said some of the property could have been salvaged by men of Fire Services, but for lack of water in the fire fighting tanker, adding that the other vehicle that could have helped the situation suddenly developed fault upon arriving the scene.

He said: “None of us was able to salvage a pin from that place. Even the guard had arrived and was about changing his dresses behind the building when he came back to meet huge smoke coming through the windows.

“We suspected arson because one of the window’s blade was bent, meaning that someone must have done that for sinister intention. We suspected that was where they used to set the building on fire.

“It could not have been an electrical problem, because our light had been disconnected before the incident. Even the fuse of the generating set we were using collectively was intact and was put on neutral, which we believed could not have sparked the fire.

“Some of us just went to the market to buy new products to sell when the incident happened and we may end up having nothing if we have no help.”

Fakayode added that when they immediately called the State Fire service upon receiving distress calls from the security guards to salvage the situation, but to no avail.