A devastating fire that occurred on Tuesday night at the Afriland Towers on Broad Street, Lagos, claimed the lives of four Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) directors and a manager.
The high-rise building, which houses the Lagos office of the FIRS, saw the fire start in the “inverter room” before it “quickly spread to other floors, fueled by strong winds and the largely wooden partitions in most of the offices in the building.”
Emergency responders, including the Lagos State Fire and Rescue Service and LASEMA, were deployed but their efforts were “hindered by the intensity of the fire and the difficulty in accessing the upper floors.”
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The victims, who were on the sixth and seventh floors, were identified as: Mrs Ekelikhostse George (Assistant Director), Mr David Sunday-Jatto (assistant director), Mrs Nkem Onyemelukwe (senior manager), and Mr Peter Ifaranmaye (manager).
According to a source, one of the directors, David Sunday-Jatto, died in the fire while in the office to hand over his duties following a transfer.
The source narrated, “He was an unassuming person, he was just transferred elsewhere and he came to the office on that day to hand over formally to his successor when the incident happened and took his life alongside eight others.”
Workers expressed their sorrow over the “devastating blow.”
An employee named John said people panicked when the fire alarm rang. “At first, we thought it was something that would be easily contained by the tower’s internal emergency workers, but the smoke from the source of fire quickly spread, covering the staircase,” he said.
He added, “Those who were on the ground floor, up to the second floor, raced out of the building, but many people sustained varying degrees of injuries.”
Other eyewitnesses described the scene as “horrific.” One source noted that “thick smoke had already engulfed the building” and lamented the lack of “functional smoke detectors.”
The source added, “This is really avoidable. It is so sad that our fire readiness is nothing to write home about.”
A petty trader, Shola Oladimeji, said, “You can imagine that some of the trapped workers jumped down from the third and fourth floors of the building. It was very horrific because everything started, and within minutes it had spread.”
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The management of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) released a statement by Dare Adekanmbi, Special Adviser on Media, expressing “deep mourning and grief” over the loss.
The statement gave the names of the four staff members and confirmed that the FIRS offices were located on the sixth and seventh floors of the tower.
It read, “It is with a heavy heart that FIRS announces the tragic loss of four of its staff members during the fire incident at Afriland Towers, Broad Street, Lagos, on Tuesday.”
The FIRS also stated they would provide support to the families of the deceased.
Tony Elumelu, the chairman of Heirs Holdings and United Bank for Africa (UBA), which has an office in the building, confirmed that UBA staff members also died in the fire.
He said he was “shattered by the fire outbreak,” describing it as a “devastating incident.”
While he did not provide a number for UBA casualties, he said, “No words can capture the magnitude of this loss—not for their families who loved them, not for the friends who valued them, and not for those of us who worked beside them.”
He added, “Yesterday was a stark reminder of what truly matters: our irreplaceable people, those who walk through our doors each day and share our mission.”
Elumelu said he had cut short a trip to the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) as “a mark of respect to our lost colleagues.”
The Deputy Controller General of the Lagos State Fire and Rescue Service, Ogabi Olajide, said the fire started at 1.38 on Tuesday from the “inverter room located in the basement.”
Olajide reported that “A total of nine casualties were rescued,” and “five individuals have been successfully resuscitated.”
See videos from the incident below:
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