EFCC officials escape death as fire guts office

Officials of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) narrowly escaped death while equipment worth millions of naira was destroyed after a fire gutted the old head office located at Wuse 2, Abuja on Monday.

The cause of the fire could not be ascertained as that time of filing this report but TheNigerian gathered that the fire started from the ICT department which formerly served as the newsroom.

The EFCC said in a statement by its acting spokesman, Mr Tony Orilade, that the damage would have been worse if not for the timely arrival of men of the Federal Fire Service.

The firefighters led by the Sector Commander, Melone Onyekachi, arrived at the scene when the service was alerted on the fire by the Incident Duty Officer of the commission, Kayode Oyetunde, at 7 pm.

The statement read in part, “The fire started at the former newsroom, which now serves as storage for ICT equipment that was retrieved from the commission’s former offices scattered across Abuja.

“The former newsroom is in the Costa Hall,  which was inaugurated by Dr Antonio Costa in 2007. The building currently houses the Data Centre and the Combined Inter-Agency Task Force.”

When asked what could have caused  the fire, Onyekachi said, “Our duty is to put out  fire; that we have successfully done. There is another department that will come and ascertain the cause of the fire.”

According to the statement, two officers attached to the Combined Inter-Agency Task Force who were trapped on the second floor of the building were rescued before the fire was eventually extinguished.