Shop owners in the ATC area of Jalingo, the capital of Taraba State, yesterday, counted their losses as a result of fire incident that razed their goods.

The Guardian learnt that the fire, which started at about 3:00a.m. destroyed goods worth millions of naira. 
 
An eyewitness lamented that despite several distress calls put across to the Fire Service, they allegedly failed to respond on time.
 
Some of the shopowners, who spoke to The Guardian, claimed that the incident has rendered them helpless.
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They called on the state government, the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), the North East Development Commission (NEDC), as well as the Ministry for Humanitarian Affairs, to come to their rescue. 
 
One of the victims, Gabriel Olayinka, who is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of one of the major online media in the state, told The Guardian that two of his shops were affected.  He said he lost several items, including stationeries and others worth millions of naira to the fire.
 
Expressing sadness that “not even a pin was picked out of my shop.” Another victim of the inferno believed that the incident would have been contained, if Fire Service men had responded on time.
 
Another trader, Uche, said he just obtained a loan from the bank to restock his shop. He wondered how he is going to repay the loan.
 
A senior staff of the Fire Service, who pleaded anonymity, blamed their inability to respond to the distress calls on time to lack of firefighting equipment.

At press time, the cause of the fire was yet to be ascertained, but some affected persons claimed that the outbreak was as a result of power surge.
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