The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development ,Hadija Sadiya Umar-Farouq has assured the victims of fire incident at Ochanja market, Onitsha,Anambra State that the Federal Government through her ministry will work assiduously with the state to forestall future occurrence of fire outbreaks.
Umar-Farouq made this known when she visited the scene of the fire outbreaks at Ochanja market on Friday,October 18,2019 to ascertain the level of damage during an interactive session with the victims.
Excel Magazine gathered that the minister who expressed sadness over the unfortunate incident made it clear that the Federal Government will be very supportive in alleviating their suffering,adding that she had directed the acting Director-General of National Emergency Management Agency, NEMA to send relief materials to the victims.
‘I came here with sadness and utmost priority.Billions of naira had been lost by the fire incident.I have directed the acting Director-General of NEMA to immediately send relief materials through the South-Easr zonal office to the affected victims of the incident.A joint committee made up of Federal and state governments will come later to assess the level of damage with a view to forestalling future incidents of fire outbreaks’,she said.
In a timely response,the Chief of staff to Governor of Anambra State,chief Primus Odii thanked President Muhammadu Buhari for prompt response and siezed the opportunity to ask Federal Government for more fire trucks which will help in forestalling such incident in the Future.
‘The people of Anambra State are happy that the president within 24 hours was able to deploy people that came to assess the extent of the damage and orders relief materials be sent down to our people.We are asking the Federal Government to also come to our side in terms of fire trucks.We are soliciting fire trucks;at least three at Ochanja market. You saw how congested the market is,so we need high powered fire trucks that can deal with such fire disasters as we saw on Wednesday’, he noted.
