Popular Ile epo market, Abule Egba in Agbado Oke-odo council area of Lagos was set ablaze on Thursday morning with properties not-yet-estimated lost in the process. The arson was triggered by a face-off among some persons within the market.
Although, there is not yet an official statement as to the cause of the inferno, an eye witness who is also a trader, Aminu Muhammad Sa’id, narrated how a misunderstanding about lottery winnings caused the free-for-all.
“One of the traders in the market played lotto (bet Naija) and won N13,000 but was given N11,000 and because of the N2,000 balance which he was not given fight broke out.
“The hoodlums from the nearby market used the opportunity to start looting and burning property in the market. They looted a lot of shops and carted away food items and valuables.
“As I am speaking to you, we cannot enter the market, but police are currently there trying to calm the situation, I can hear sounds of tear gas. We have lost millions of naira in the market,” a trader, Muhammad Sa’id, told Daily Trust Newspaper.
Meanwhile, normalcy is gradually returning to the area after security agents, including the Rapid Response Squad (RRS) moved to the scene of the violence.
