Over 300 shops have been destroyed in a fire outbreak in Kara market, Sokoto state metropolis.
The cause of the fire was still unknown and according to eye witness accounts, the inferno started around 4am.
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There are different information on the cause of the outbreak. While someone said the fire started around grain section before escalating to other parts of the market, another said the fire started from the blacksmith section around 2am.
One of the affected traders, Jamilu Isa, said he lost all his wares to the inferno.
“I lost everything in my shop and my neighbours too,” he said
The spokesman of the traders, Tukur Balarabe, said over 300 shops were destroyed before the inferno was contained.
The chairman of the Sokoto traders association, Alhaji Chika Sarkin Gishiri, said the fire destroyed goods worth millions of naira.
He called on the state government to come to the aid of the affected traders by providing them with financial support.
Governor Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, who was among the early callers at the scene of the incident, consoled the traders and urged them to take it in good faith.
“We all know that, anything that happened to a Muslim whether good or bad is from God. So I want you to take it as a will of God and pray for succour from him,” he said
Represented by his deputy, Manir Dan’iya, Tambuwal directed the Commissioner of Commerce and President, Sokoto Chamber of Commerce, to take inventory of the damage caused by the fire.
In December last year, fire destroyed part of the Sokoto Central market which is yet to be renovated.
