Monday, August 12, 2024 - Some staff members of LG Electronics, at Abule Osun, Trade Fair, Lagos State were arrested for allegedly stealing some foreign currencies belonging to their employers after a fire engulfed the store in the early hours of Sunday, August 11.
The fire started shortly after
midnight, destroying goods worth billions of Naira.
The Lagos State Emergency Management
Agency in a statement through its Head of Public Affairs Unit, Nosa Okunbor,
stated that the agency received distress calls through its toll-free emergency
lines at 12:15 am, with fire officials arriving 25 minutes later to extinguish
the blaze.
Okunbor noted that the fire affected
“equipment, small forklifts, household goods/gadgets, including TVs,
refrigerators, and air conditioners, estimated to be worth hundreds of billions
of naira.”
The statement added that the fire
“has been contained” in collaboration with other emergency responders.
“The major warehouse has been
severely damaged by the fire. However, through the effective collaborative
efforts of the agency’s LRT, LRU Fire Unit, the Lagos State Fire & Rescue
Service, the Federal Fire Service, and other primary responders, the fire has
been contained and prevented from spreading to adjacent structures, including
other warehouses, a gas station, diesel tankers, expatriate quarters, and other
adjoining buildings,” the statement added.
However, as the fire spread, some
workers allegedly used the opportunity to steal.
A worker who spoke to Punch at the
scene of the blaze said a combined team of police and military men was deployed
to the warehouse due to reports of theft by some of the workers.
He said, “We were in the store when
some of our colleagues alerted us that a fire had started in a part of the
store. We started looking for a way to stop the fire at that moment. While some
of us were doing that, a few others broke into the offices and started stealing
foreign currencies from our employers.”
Some of the alleged perpetrators caught in
the act were interrogated by soldiers at the scene.
One of those arrested and
identified simply as Ali Baba was seen being held by his trousers and briefly
led outside the gate by the soldiers to identify some other suspects who were
involved in the act.
“Ali Baba has been with the company for over a decade. He
has a very close relationship with his employers. He was very young and it had
been about 10 years when he arrived here before he rose to the position of a
supervisor. The way he was handled by the soldiers showed he is among those
held by the officers,” a customer who bought scraps from the warehouse told the
public
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