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Following a midnight fire that destroyed their six stores at around 12 a.m. on Friday, store owners in the Calabar suburb of Atimbo, the capital of Cross River State, are in deep grief.

Their goods, valued at millions of naira, were destroyed in the fire.

The chain of six stores featured a pharmacy, a barbershop, a tailor shop, a restaurant, a laundry, and a local DSTV subscription office.

Even though the incident occurred at an odd hour, neighbors and locals showed up in large numbers to assist in putting out the fire, but to no effect.

They were unable to accomplish much, though, as the goods and properties were totally destroyed, in part due to the fact that some of the stores had burglary proofs.

Since there were frequent outages and fluctuations throughout the day, many neighbors suspected electrical sparks as the origin of the fire, however this was not immediately established.

Madam Nkoyo Effiom, a landlady, claimed that she was unable to sleep any longer as other locals flocked outside to help.

She stated she knew the owners of the shops as friendly neighbours.

Effiom acknowledged that the fire outbreak might have been triggered by the constant power outages that occurred during the day.

“I think it is the fluctuations and frequent power cuts during the day that must have caused the fire.”

According to Chike Obike, a local who talked to reporters at the fire scene, “At about past 12 a.m., the light came back, and we saw sparks around where the shops are. We started noticing smoke coming from one of the shops — the laundry shop.”

“We took turns to put out the fire and help the shop owners get some of their properties out.”

Obike claimed that the stores lost nearly everything because the burglary proofs prevented them from accessing them to retrieve any merchandise.

According to Emmanuel Ugo, another homeowner, there was no need in contacting the Fire Service because they lack any equipment, firefighting hydrants, or cars, let alone fuel to run them.

As of the filing of this report, neither Igri Ewa, the Deputy PRO for the State Police Command, nor Barrister Ekpenyong Akiba, the Special Adviser to the Governor on General Duties, had returned calls.

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