Fire guts National Assembly store, destroys documents, furniture (Photos)

Fire, on Thursday, engulfed a store in the House of Representatives section of the National Assembly Complex in Abuja.

At about 6pm on Thursday, passers-by who noticed smoke coming out from a store on the second floor of the New Building, House of Reps Wing of the Complex, raised the alarm.

The wing houses lawmakers’ offices, committee rooms, banks and other private concerns.

Office of the Speaker, Deputy Speaker and principal officers are on the fourth floor.

Fire-fighters from the Federal Fire Service, which has a permanent office on the premises, as well as security operatives rushed to the office, and later succeeded in putting out the fire.

The Director of Information, National Assembly, Rawlings Agada, confirmed the incident in a statement issued on Thursday, titled ‘Reported Fire Incident at the House of Representatives New Wing Today, Thursday, 11th August, 2022, in the National Assembly Complex.’

The statement read, “There was a fire incident this evening in one of the janitors located on the 2nd Floor, Room 227 in the New Wing of the House of Representatives, suspected to have resulted from an electrical fault which was noticed by one of the staff (members attached) to the Clerk, House of Representatives, who promptly alerted the Federal Fire Service unit stationed in the National Assembly Complex.

“Accordingly, the fire have be put out with assistance of staff on duty who immediately broke into the affected office and effectively deployed stationed fire extinguishers on the floor before the arrival of the fire service officers.

“Consequently, the combined prompt efforts curtailed the fire to the affected office only, and power supply to the wing put off to enable a full assessment and investigations into the incident.

“It is expected that after due assessment by the Fire Service and the Estate and Works Directorate, normalcy in the New Wing housing all principal officers of the House of Representatives and honourable members’ offices will be restored immediately.

“(The) Management wishes to commend the prompt response/ actions by the first responders particularly National Assembly staff (members) and the Fire Service unit in helping to curtain the fire outbreak.”

Agada also attached photos of the scene, which showed burnt documents, furniture and other items.

The federal parliament has recorded fire outbreaks of varying degrees in the past.