A popular club in Jalingo, Duchess Lounge, which is estimated to be worth close to a billion naira, was razed by fire on Tuesday.
Tribune Online gathered that the Nigeria Fire Service did not respond to the incident for three hours despite repeated attempts to contact them.
Although the exact cause of the fire has not been confirmed, eyewitnesses suggest that it may have been triggered by a sudden power surge, which was worsened by the weather conditions.
The owner of the lounge and former Speaker of the Taraba State House of Assembly, Professor Joseph Albasu Kunini, told our correspondent that the club had just undergone a comprehensive overhaul in preparation for its third anniversary on December 30.
“It is a sad development and a huge loss, but we thank God that no lives were lost. We had just completed a full renovation and changed the furniture ahead of our third anniversary this December,” he said.
Meanwhile, the club’s manager, Mr Desmond Wee, told our correspondent, “When the fire started, I immediately called the fire services, but they only arrived three hours later, after the damage was already done.”
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