By Theodore Opara

President of the United Allied Spare Parts Dealers Association, UASPDA, Deacon Simon Uzoetue, has identified the use of firewood, generating sets, and charcoal by food vendors as major causes of market fire outbreaks recorded in recent times.

He told a general assembly of the union in Lagos, that his administration has successfully completed a solar electricity project at the secretariat building to reduce the use of generating sets, adding that the gesture will be extended to all plazas and clusters for the benefit of operators whose businesses required constant and all-day power supply.

Uzoetue lamented that apart from setting the industry backward, market fire has become a recurring decimal in Nigeria whose impact has thrown millions of very successful traders and their families into abject poverty while leading others to their early graves.

He said: “Another important aspect of this environmental sanitation project that we are working on is regulating the cooking habits of food vendors within the complex. It is no longer news that the carelessness of those cooking with wood and coal is among the major causes of most market fire incidents witnessed lately across Nigeria.

“So, we are building ultra-modern kitchen facilities for food vendors to enable them to use only gas cookers, knowing very well that after putting off the burning wood and coals at the end of the day, some of the fire comes back alive in the night, using all the littering plastics and garbage as fuel to spread everywhere.”

The UASPDA General Secretary, Uzochukwu Mmaduike, while raising the issues of shop revocation and authentication, reminded other traders that “Today is the third and last meeting where this matter is being treated, so we need a final conclusion.”

The traders approved a twenty-one-day notice to all shop owners who defaulted in paying for their allocated shops, while a nine-man authentication committee was set up to oversee the authentication exercise within the next six-month period.