BENIN CITY – The biggest ultra-modern super shopping mall, Phil-Hallmark located on Sapele road, Benin city has been razed by mid-night fire that raged till the early hours of Sunday morning with wares and property worth billions of millions of naira burnt to ashes.
Phil-Hallmark is the largest single shopping centre in Benin City which attracts customers from within and outside Nigeria and it has a track record of consistent customer service for over three decades.
Speaking while inspecting the charred relics of Phil-Hallmark ultra-modern shopping centre in Benin City on Sunday, Edo State Governor, Godwin Obaseki, who was met on arrival by a member of Edo State House of Assembly, representing Oredo East Constituency, Hon. Chris Okaeben, expressed shock at the unfortunate incident and ordered for a full scale investigation into the cause of the fire disaster.
The Governor, who met, sympathized and interacted with the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Phil-Hallmark, Philip Edigin said, “This is a catastrophe. I mean this is a major disaster for us and this is the only one we have. Like you said this is the largest super-mall we have in the state. And for this sort of incident at this time of the year, it is a catastrophe and we should all be concerned.”
On what the state government will do to avert further occurrence of such incident, the Governor, who met, sympathized and interacted with Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the burnt super mart said, “I have asked for a detailed report and investigation into this and by Tuesday morning, I should get it, and we will now ensure that we make publicity that every public building, every place you are going to have a lot of traffic and Christmas activities must have a fire disaster plan.”
Reacting to the capacity of the State fire-fighting service to promptly respond to distress calls, Governor Obaseki said, “I will investigate. I know trucks were purchased for the fire-fighting and rescue service through the NDDC(Niger Delta Development Commission) assistance few years ago and now I have asked for an investigation to find out what the situation is and why the fire-fighting service could not respond promptly.”
Also speaking the State Director of Fire-Fighting and Rescue Service Mr. Franklin Agbonlahor said, “The season we are going into now, we are still expecting more of this. So, the earlier, the better we put those facilities on ground. I am appealing and I have been clamouring for assistance so that those materials can be working, so that we can respond to the yearnings of the people at any given time. Meanwhile, we have been able to extinguish most part of the fire.”
As at the time Governor Obaseki visited the site of the fire incidence, fire-fighting officers and men of the Nigeria Air Force, those of the Integrated Data Services Limited(IDSL) and National Petroleum Development Company(NPDC) which are both subsidiaries of the Nigeria National Petroleum Company(NNPC) as well as those of Edo State Fire-Fighting And Rescue Service, who combated the ravaging inferno, were still on ground especially, as thin cloud of smoke was still emanating from some parts of the top floors of the storey building.
As at the time of filing this report, astonished Passers-by, sympathizers and even motorists were still thronging to see the once-beautiful-and-now-burnt shopping edifice.
