A fire broke out inside the private residence of Nigeria’s Minister of State for the FCT, Dr. Mariya Mahmoud, in Asokoro, Abuja.
Amiola Adebayo, Acting Director of the FCT Fire Service, confirmed the occurrence, saying the fire entirely damaged the building’s first story.
Adebayo said that the fire started about 9:45 a.m. on Sunday. The Fire Service was alleged to have arrived at the scene a few minutes after being contacted by first responders who attempted to extinguish the fire.
“The fire was discovered a few minutes to ten, maybe around 9:45 am. We received a running call around thirteen minutes after ten, so we followed the person who 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 Fire Service. It was a running call that came to us. From our findings, they say 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 is just to prevent the fire from spreading to the ground floor, and the adjacent structures. No lives lost”, he said.
The Service is yet to determine the cause of the fire.