The President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan on Thursday visited the Central Market in Nguru, Yobe State to sympathise with the victims of the fire incident of last Saturday.
Lawan arrived at Nguru in the afternoon, paid homage to the Emir of Nguru and later proceeded to the main market to see for himself what happened.
The Senate President later donated the sum of N10 million towards rebuilding the market and appealed to other people in the community to make similar contributions to ease the sufferings of those who are affected by the fire incident.
Lawan also witnessed the flag off of relief materials by the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian, Disaster Management and Social Development through the National Emergency Management Agency(NEMA).
Speaking shortly before the distribution of relief materials, Lawan prayed against a recurrence of such an incident.
He said: “Incident like this happen because they are destined to happen. But as some said, there are causes and sources of such accidents. We need to look at why the fire outbreak is happening almost on yearly basis in our market here.
“Nguru Central Market is a very important market to us in Yobe State and the Northeast. We have so many people who benefit from this market directly and indirectly.
“So we are supposed to do everything and anything possible within our limit to support our people who have lost so much in their businesses to the fire accident.
“When I learnt about the fire incident, I immediately placed a call to the Honourable Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Social Development to inform her of this development and of course, she sent NEMA Northeast to come and see what has happened here.
“NEMA has brought some relief materials for our people. But because this is relief material, this is simply to cushion the immediate impact of that accident.
“I want to commend the Chairman of Nguru Local Government Council for assuring us that all those that are affected will benefit from the relief materials appropriately.”
The Minister of Humanitarian Affair and Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Umar Farouq said in a speech read on her behalf by her Director of Humanitarian Affairs, Grema Ali Alhaji said it was a sad incident “because of the extent of damage caused and losses to livelihoods of many persons.”
She said the relief materials brought were based on the damage assessment and need analysis conducted by NEMA and for emergency response.
The Minister said the North East Development Commission(NEDC) had been directed to assess the situation for the assistance of victims’ recovery from the disaster.
