FIRE GUTS PART OF OYO HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY

A WILD fire, this afternoon broke out in a part of the Oyo State House of Assembly complex located within the Government Secretariat, Agodi, Ibadan.

The fire started a few minutes after 2:00p.m, shortly after the lawmakers concluded the first plenary after months-long recess.

The fire which started from the generator sited close to the complex, gutted part of the room allocated to newsmen assigned to cover the House proceedings.

A satellite dish mounted close to the generator was also not spared from the inferno: it was razed to ashes.

Some lawmakers who were holding a House committee meeting within the complex and staff in the building quickly fled on seeing the raging fire heralded by thick black smoke that billowed uncontrollably into the skyline.

With alacrity, men from the state fire service, led by their director, Mr Kareem Oyekunle, rushed to the scene of the outbreak with a well-equipped and well-manned fire ambulance and put out the fire within 15 minutes.

Speaking with newsmen, Oyekunle, who said he was informed about the incident by Mr Abimbola Adekanmbi, Deputy Chief of Staff to Governor Abiola Ajimobi, attributed the cause of the fire to overheating of the generator.

He suggested that more than one generator be deployed to power the multiple adjoining buildings in the complex and the alternate use of such generators as a precautionary measure against recurrence.

Also speaking, a member of the House, Honourable Kehinde Subair, told newsmen that the generator had aged and gone weak, having been serving the whole of the complex since 2000 when it was purchased by the Alhaji Lam Adesina administration.

He explained that although provision had been made for a new generator in the 2012 budget for which money was yet to be released, they were “still managing” the burnt generator, adding that they had been complaining about the weakness of the equipment for a long time.

He observed that no part of the complex would have been affected in the incident if the generator house had been built far away from the complex, saying that a new generator would be sited metres away from the building.

The lawmaker commended the swift response of the fire fighters and urged them to tackle possible fire outbreak that may occur in any part of the state.