Fire razes supermarket in Uyo

Fire razed a popular supermarket, Nteps Supermarket, in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State on Friday night.

The supermarket shares a perimeter fence with First City Monument Bank (FCMB) along Oron Road.

The destroyed building had housed a warehouse from where products were supplied to its two other branches in the city and another one at Ikot Ekpene, outside Uyo.

The fire reportedly started around 11 p.m., according to a witness. It burnt off the body of the building and the roof, and destroyed goods worth millions of naira.

Residents of the area said state firefighters arrived late at the scene and had difficulty putting out the fire because of “insufficient water”.

They said it took the intervention of federal fighters from the federal secretariat to put out the fire and prevented it from spreading to nearby buildings, including the FCMB.

Kufre Eshiet, an official at the emergency unit of the state fire service, declined comment on the incident when PREMIUM TIMES contacted him on Saturday.

Residents gathered in clusters on Saturday morning to discuss the incident, when a PREMIUM TIMES reporter visited the scene.

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Some workers at the supermarket were parking some items out of the destroyed building.

Nteps Supermarket has about 75 employees, with 30 of them working at the destroyed warehouse alone, said a worker who did not want his name mentioned in the report since he was not authorised to speak on the incident.

The Managing Director of Nteps, Nsikan Akpan, stood outside on Saturday morning with vendors and friends who came to sympathise with the company.

Mr Akpan told our reporter that the company would issue a statement on the matter soon.