Fire at INEC, Office of Chairman’s Aide Affected

Onyebuchi Ezigbo

There was a fire outbreak at the national headquarters of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Abuja yesterday.

The National Commissioner of INEC (South-west), Chairman of Committee of Voter Education and Publicity, Solomon Soyebi, confirmed the incident to journalists in a text message.

He said: “There was a fire outbreak in INEC in the office of the Personal Assistant to the Chairman. It was caused by an electrical fault from an air conditioner. It has been brought under control by men of the fire service,” he said.

Another official of the commission and the Director in the Voter Education and Publicity Department, Mr. Osaze Uzzi, who witnessed the fire incident, told THISDAY that the fire started from a spark from an air conditioner in the office of the Personal Assistant to the Chairman.

He said the fire only burnt the curtain in the office but was put out before it could do severe damage.

According to him, the men of the fire service Unit of the commission acted swiftly to put out the fire within five minutes.

The federal government, though the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment, yesterday banned the importation of tomato paste, powder or concentrate, and increased the tariff on importation of tomato concentrate among others from five to 50 per cent in order to revive the tomato sector.

According to operators, the value of imported tomato paste in Nigeria is about $170 million and $50 million spent on triple tomato concentrate.

In a document obtained by THISDAY yesterday from the Federal Ministry of Industry