Kebbi gov seeks probe of fire incident

Kebbi State Governor, Nasir Idris, has advocated establishment of a committee of enquiry to ascertain the cause of the fire at Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) substation in Birnin Kebbi.

This was made known in a statement issued by Chief Press Secretary to the Governor, Ahmed Idris.

The Thursday night fire, The Guardian gathered, destroyed one 90MVA (330KV/132KV) and a 60MVA (132KV/33KV) transformers valued at $4 million. They were supplying power to Kebbi, Sokoto and parts of Zamfara states.

After inspecting the affected facilities in Birnin Kebbi, the governor said investigation became necessary to avoid recurrence of such ugly development.

He said: “If the committee found any member of staff wanting, such employee should be brought to book to serve as deterrent to others,”

According to the governor, unconfirmed reports revealed that the inferno was as a result “hoarding of power” which exploded due to over-storage.

“What we were supposed to get is not what we have been given. Our people are paying for the services. It is just like social contract; if you supply, our people will pay. There is no doubt about it,” he added.

Idris recalled when they sat down with an executive director from Kaduna Electric and reached an agreement that led to improvement in power supply then. “However, after sometime, the supply dropped. That may be why people were insinuating that they were hoarding the light.”

He said, already directives had been given to the Ministry of Water Resources as well as advisers on Power and that of Environment to make contingency arrangement on supply of diesel to power engines at Water Board for supply of water to Kebbi residents.

“We don’t want a situation where this problem will lead to suffering of our people. We want people to enjoy supply of potable water to avoid outbreak of diseases,” he noted.

He promised to allocate money for the repair of the state’s fire vehicles to enable them discharge their duties effectively, adding that he would assist the federal fire service too.

Idris appealed to people of Kebbi to be patient, as TCN engineers and other technical staff were working round the clock to restore power to Kebbi and environs.