Nigeria Lost N6 Trillion To Fire Disaster In Five Years — Senate

The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Interior, Sen. Andy Uba, revealed that no fewer than N6tn worth of goods lost to fire disasters in the past five years Nigeria. 

Uba who made this known at the International Fire Conference and Exhibition, organised by joint Committees of National Assembly on interior said it could be more than that if the fire disaster in recorded in the database. 

According to him, nationally, direct and indirect reported and unreported losses to the economy have been put conservatively at about N6 trillion.

“Alarming as these numbers are, they could be significantly higher if all the fire incidents in rural areas were recorded by an efficient operational fire statistics database.

“There is a general consensus on the need to mitigate this trend to stopping the fire before they start,” he said.

Speaking further,  he said in Lagos State alone  N54 billion was lost to fire incidents in Lagos alone between 2012-2015.

“Statistics from Lagos and safety service show that inhabitants of the state lost N54 billion worth of property to fire in three years between 2012-20150 .

“Statistics also show that 185 lives were lost in 470 fire incidents in the same period under review with the oil and gas sector recording the highest number of incidents. “

The lawmaker told the Federal Government to reposition fire service delivery to make it modern and efficient.

Uba, who noted that less than two per cent of Nigeria’s population was fire safety literate, called for media partnership on creating awareness on the issue.

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