Nigeria can reduce huge damage to fire with strict regulation, efficient equipment, says expert

Every year, Nigeria loses property running into multibillion Naira to fire incidents but a fire disaster prevention expert says this national destruction can be reduced drastically if Nigeria ensures efficient fire fighting equipment brands are imported and sold in the market but more importantly if Nigeria  implement its fire prevention laws.

Lagos State Government recently said that the state  lost 84 people and N12.8 billion worth of properties to fire in the last one year alone.

Regretting the huge lose in  private and commercial properties annually to fire nationwide, the CEO of  Surveillant Fire Limited, Jumade Adejola, in a chat with BusinessDay recently, linked it to weak regulation of fire fighting laws, poor fire prevention practices, poor awareness and fake or inefficient fire fighting equipment.

“On fake products for fighting fire, there is nothing anybody can do without government regulation. Strict regulation will discourage people that are bringing in fake products. A situation where NAFDAC and SON go from shop to shop identifying fake products is an aberration instead of stopping it at the port of entry.  There should be strict regulation that whoever that brings substandard product is either jailed or punished severely. Then unscrupulous people will withdraw from it”.

Jumade who has been in business of selling fire fighting equipment for over 20 years strongly believed that Nigeria has trusted and qualified engineers that can identify fake  products from genuine ones at the ports before entry. He also warned consumers that price is not a determinant of fake or genuine product, especially extinguishers. “Some extinguishers cannot put out fire when it happens”, he said.

Demonstrating how desperate some Nigerians and foreigners could be in their desire to sell fake product, Jumade said his company imports genuine products from a Dubai company. But he was surprised to see that the Dubai Company’s name has been registered in Nigeria by some people with intention to import different products in the brand name of this Dubai company. “This will mislead the consumers” he said.

Jumade also identified ignorance as major reason some properties including vehicles lack fire fighting equipment such as fire extinguishers. “We need to clear the ignorance in the society about protection against incidents such as fire. Many homes don’t have fire extinguishers and many people have died due to lack of fire extinguishers. We also need to educate people about safety laws”, he said regretting poor implementation of fire fighting codes in the country.

With understanding of the consequence of fire to property, Jumade who said his company imports its products from UK, US, Dubai and Singapore said Surveillant Limited prides itself in quality delivery. “From day one, we decided that we will not compromise quality.

“Every product we sell is not just quality but approved products. These are products that have been approved by the quality approval institutions such ISO. Why we are interested in quality is that any thing that concerns life and property no mistake is accepted”

According to him, before his company embarks on a job, it first designs. “It is from this design that we actually know where to mount fire prevention equipment, and then we select the appropriate products. We don’t just design for our clients but we provide after sales services”.

Jumade who blamed epileptic electricity in Nigeria for the delay in siting power-consuming fire fighting assembly equipment plants in Nigeria with his partners commended Lagos State government’s efforts in fire fighting and prevention in the state.

Apart from procuring equipment and trucks for fire fighting, he said Lagos is organising a conference to further create awareness on its Vision Zero which means zero tolerance to  accidents or mishap in especially workplaces.