June 05, (THEWILL) – Magistrate court 1 which was gutted by a weekend fire, has lost materials including vital court documents, exhibits, and properties confiscated from law offenders, estimated at N40 million.
Court sources disclosed to THEWILL that the complex was gutted by fire on Thursday, June 1, at midnight.
The fire burnt down the Magistrate Court 1 completely with exhibits and other vital documents to ashes.
Properties of law offenders confiscated by the court which were parked inside the court, were also burnt by the fire.
A Magistrate, who preferred anonymity, conducted journalists round the burnt building, said he and some staff of the state high court who are living around the Magistrate Court premises, were woken from sleep by the fire.
“We were woken by the inferno. We are living close to the court premises. We I came there, we started using our fire extinguishers to quench the fire. I shot one of the extinguishers and the fire exploded and got more serious.
“By this time, our security men had run away. We contacted the state fire service and they came and help us to quench the fire. Before their arrival, we have exhausted our fire extinguishers”, he stated.
Nnenna Onuoha, Chief Registrar of the state high court, who confirmed the incident, said the estimate of what was destroyed by the fire is about N40 million.
“On the early hours of June and that should be on 3rd June, we got calls from our people living at the magistrate quarters that our court has been gutted by fire.
“We rushed to the court and saw that the court was truly razed by fire we started asking what could be the cause of the incident. They told us that the fire was from the transformer, and they said the fire came out from the transformer.
“Rescuers called Ebonyi State Fire Service and they came and help us to quench the fire. As you can see, the building was completely gutted by fire.
“Rough estimate of the property should be up to about N40 million. Most of the exhibits in the court were gutted by fire”, she said.
Sunday Ogbu is a professional journalist with eight - twelve years experience that had worked with various print and online media. Sunday specializes in news reporting with the aim of educating his readers on current social, political and economic occurences within his area of coverage. Sunday is a strong force to work with in the media industry and uses his positive attitude and tireless energy to encourage others to work hard and succeed. Sunday is inspired daily by his wife and their four children. In his free time, Sunday likes sight-seeing, reading and discussing issues of societal interest.
