Kaduna Railway Station Market fire: Govt to build, relocate traders – El-Rufai

Kaduna Railway Station Market fire: Govt to build, relocate traders – El-Rufai
By; Abdull-Azeez Ahmed Kadir, Kaduna.
Kaduna Railway Station Market that was gutted by fire in the early hours of today is to be rebuilt and the traders relocated from the current place, the state governor, Mallam Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai has said.
Paying a sympathy visit to the traders at the popular Station Market, Kachia road in Kaduna South Local Government, the Governor said plans are in top gear to build a state of the art neighborhood market centre behind the rail lines for the traders.
He described as unfortunate the inferno and the loss of property blaming it on the nature of the market design that prevented fire fighters from accessing the scene despite arriving there on time.
“It is most unfortunate that we continue to have this incident. What is sad for me, is not just the loss of property in this case, but the fact that the fire fighting equipments could not get in and reduce the losses because of the way and manner the market itself was designed.
“We already have plans for this market; we have plans to build a modern neighborhood centre across the railway line and relocate them” El-Rufai said.
“He stressed that with the incident, the government would use the opportunity to try to get the traders to a new, safer and more accessible location “so that in the event of this kind of misfortune, at least the fire engines can get in there and reduce the losses”.
He asserted that the state emergency management agency was on hand as quickly as it could, but could not do much.
“The leadership of the market and our officials will sit to assess the situation and bring a report to the government for further actions” he assured.
The fire incident at the popular Station Market, known for the sells of fruits and vegetables was said to have occurred in the early hours of today.
The cause of the inferno is unknown, but this is the 4th consecutive time the market is recording such incident and always during harmattan season as this.