Fire Guts Federal Secretariat

There was confusion in Federal Ministry of Education, Federal Secretariat in Abuja yesterday when fire gutted the 6th, 7th and 8th floors of the ministry but was swiftly put out by the fire service.

The complex houses major government offices in Abuja.

Nobody could say how the fire started as thick smoke was seen billowing into the sky, even though some sources said it was an inverta which had developed fault.

Civil servants and visitors that were there when the fire started were seen scampering for safety with some spreading rumours that implicating documents of the present and past ministers, permanent secretaries and directors might have been destroyed to forestall probing by the in-coming leadership of the president-elect, Gen Muhammad Buhari.

Some workers at the complex revealed that the fire equipment at the building were not working, this affected efforts to extinguish the fire on time.

“All the fire extinguishers in the building have expired,” one official said. “That could have been used to extinguish the fire at it first started. But they didn’t work.”

Minister of State for Education, Prof. Viola Onwuliri, when she spoke to journalists on the issue, said, “For the prompt intervention of Fire Service, the fire would have been more than this. You can see how many trucks they came along with and they have assured me that they would find the point where the fire started from.

“But the most important thing is that nobody was hurt and the fire service people are still working”.

The Minister of State, said she can’t say precisely when the fire started, “Well I won’t be able to tell you when the fire started because I didn’t look at the time. I just know it has something to do with some panel.”