The office of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) located opposite the Stock Exchange office on Custom Street,Marina Lagos was on Tuesday gutted by fire, an incident that has triggered lots of suspicious suggestions.
While some CBN staff attributed the source of the fire, which began at exactly 5.40pm, to a power surge, some Nigerians believe that sabotage could be an option.
The sabotage, they say, could be related to a bid to destroy some evidence relating to allegations of corruption in the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan.
An official of the affected bank told Huhuonline.com correspondent on the telephone that he had left the office when the incident occurred.
“I was on my way home when my colleague called to inform me that our office had been gutted by fire. He told me that the part of the office affected is where vital documents are kept.
“He also told me that nobody knows how the fire started, but that most of those in the office at the time were top officers”, the source said, adding that it would be difficult to recover the documents.
At the time of this report, state and federal and private fire fighting officials had successfully put out the fire, security officials barricading the entire area.
Head of Fire Prevention at the Federal Fire Service in Lagos Mr. Njoku Chika said the fire started at about 5.00pm from the first floor on left wing of the five-storeyed building. Chika said that the floor houses the administrative department of the bank, adding that the fire was put out within minutes.
“Fire services from the Federal, State, UBA, Union Bank collaborated to put out the inferno”, he said. “The Police and Civil Defence Corps provided security to the areas. No death was recorded”.
A staffer of the Lagos Fire Service was also injured while putting out the fire, according to Mr. Rasak Fadipe, director, Lagos State Fire Service.
“We received a distress call around 5.45pm. We deployed a 10,000 litre fire truck from the Onikan Fire Station to the scene and another 10, 000 litres truck from Sari Iganmu, including the area ladder”, Fadipe said.
“The fire involved a five-storeyed building belonging to the CBN. The fire is on the third floor, which is divided into two wings. The fire only affected one of the wings”.
Spokesperson of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), South-West zone, Ibrahim Farinloye also confirmed that no one was trapped or injured in the incident.
CBN is yet to make any formal statement over the incident but many Nigerians have taken to social media to express their conviction that the fire may have been caused by those desperate to destroy materials that could assist in the unravelling of some major corruption scandals among top government officials in the country.
The affected building — located opposite the Stock Exchange office on Custom Street, Marina — served as CBN’s headquarters before its relocation to the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.
