Shops and property worth millions of Naira were destroyed on Thursday night as fire razed the Maiduguri GSM market.
News Agency of Nigeria reports that the fire started at around 8:00 p.m. and lasted for several hours before it was extinguished by firefighters, security personnel and members of the community.
The market popularly called Kasuwar Jagol is located at Post Office area of the metropolis, providing business spaces to thousands of traders and artisans in the area.
Mr Ambursa Pindar, the Public Relations Officer of the Borno Fire Service who confirmed the incident, said that the service deployed five firefighting vehicles to the scene of the fire.
Pindar said that the service would conduct an assessment to ascertain the extent of the damage.
An eye witness, Mr Abdulrahman Tahir, said the fire started in one of the shops and engulfed other shops in the market.
Tahir, a cell phone vendor, lamented that a number of traders lost their goods to the fire.
NAN reports that armed security personnel were deployed to the market to prevent hoodlums from looting.
(NAN)
