Federal Ministry of Finance Fire Incident: No Cause for Alarm, Says Karebo

Michael Olugbode in Abuja

The Controller-General of the Federal Fire Service (FFS), Dr. Samson Karebo, has called for calm, insisting that the fire outbreak at the Federal Ministry of Finance headquarters has been brought under control.

A statement issued yesterday by the Public Relations Officer of the FFS, ACF Paul Abraham, said Karebo has assured Nigerians that the fire has been brought under control, and maintained there was no cause for alarm.

Abraham said the Control Room of the Federal Fire Service yesterday received a fire call at about 7 a.m. that there was a fire outbreak at the headquarters of the Federal Ministry of Finance, and immediately, three fire stations of the Service within the Federal Capital Territory (FCT)-Garki, Wuse and Secretariat Stations-were deployed in the scene.

He added that due to the importance of the Ministry of Finance to national security, the controller-general directed the assistant controller-general in charge of federal operations to coordinate the operations.

He disclosed that men of the Federal Fire Service, who arrived at the scene at about two minutes after they received the call, discovered that some staff of the ministry had used fire extinguisher to bring the situation under control, so the fire fighters carried out on-the-spot assessment to ensure no case of re-ignition before leaving the scene.

The CGF, while commending the Ministry of Finance for ensuring that the office has fire protection equipment in place, such as fire extinguishers, called on Nigerians to take a que from the Ministry of Finance by equipping their homes and offices with fire equipment.

He, however, revealed that investigation has commenced to ascertain the actual cause of the fire.