How electrical fault triggered fire in FCT minister’s private residence
A fire service official report on the early Sunday morning fire that gutted the private residence of the Minister of State of the Federal Capital Territory, Dr. Mariya Mahmoud, a seven-bedroom duplex, in Asokoro, Abuja, has said the cause was “suspected to be an electrical fault inside the children’s room.”
The acting Director of the FCT Fire Service, Amiola Adebayo, confirmed the incident to our correspondent, stating that the first floor of the building was completely razed but no life was lost to the fire.
He explained that the fire had started at about 9:45 am, but officers of the service arrived the scene some minutes after they had received a running call, after responders had tried to reach the Federal Fire Service.
A running call means that rather than calling the emergency line of the fire service, responders had insisted on going to the office to get the attention of the firemen.
“The fire was discovered few minutes to 10 am, maybe around 9:45 am. We received a running call around 13 minutes after 10 am. So, we followed the person that came to call us to the fire scene.
“All of them were on the ground floor. They did not discover the fire on time, and they didn’t call the FCT Fire Service. It was a running call that came to us. From our findings, they said they called the Federal Fire Service, but they didn’t respond on time. That’s when the running call came to our office.
“On reaching there, we saw that the first floor, the upper floor, was completely engulfed in fire. So, what we could do was just to prevent the fire from spreading to the ground floor, and to the adjacent structures. No lives lost”, he said.
According to the fire service official report obtained by our correspondent, all the household items on the first floor, including walls, roof, air conditioner, beds, clothes, documents, credentials jewellery, etc, were lost in the fire.
The report also stated that no lives were lost and that the fire was brought under control at 2:51 pm.
