“Fire is the test of gold; adversity, of strong men.” – Martha Graham
The title of this piece sounds profoundly hurtful, but that is the reality of our times. Fire outbreaks have been on the rise in Nigeria in recent times and Nigerians have been largely shocked and traumatised by the increasing destructions that have, resultantly, been mercilessly unleashed on them, thus reinforcing the truism in a Latinate proverb that “Fire, water, and government know nothing of mercy.”
Fire, as a culprit in this instant practicality, like water though, does not know the colours of the skin. It does not understand ethnic or tribal backgrounds. It is religion-blind. It plagues everybody, everywhere, if it is provoked. The other day in Abuja, it failed to appreciate the sacrosanctity of the extension building of the House on the Rock Church. It reared its ugly head there and turned a hitherto beautiful structure into a carcass.
Perhaps, the entire structure would have become a rubbish heap if not for the Federal Fire Service which moved in with a “miracle solution” that it deployed in putting out the fire. I had it from a grapevine that the Fire Service sidestepped their old method of using water and foam and chose, instead, to use the new F-500 Encapsulator Agent (EA) that has been described as a revolutionary innovation in firefighting.
The agent, as understood, is a fire suppressant that works effectively to knockdown fire in the shortest possible time, sometimes, in a matter of seconds, depending on the volume of fire. I also understand that it is currently the only fire suppressant agent that can encapsulate hydrocarbon vapours, rendering them non-flammable and non-ignitable.
Besides, it is said to have three unique features that make it superior to other agents: the ability to rapidly cool down the temperature of a fire in seconds, thereby providing permanent burn-back resistance; the ability to encapsulate the hydrocarbon molecules, rendering them non-flammable and non-ignitable; and, the ability to interrupt the free radical coalescence, thereby inhibiting the formation of toxic soot and smoke.
Recent media reports said that some ministries, agencies and departments (MDAs) such as the Federal Fire Service, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), Ministry of Interior, National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA), etc., have tested and certified the deployment and use of the product in their facilities.
These organisations should avail us with feedbacks of the performance of the products so that Nigerians can have the opportunity of choosing to or not to arm themselves with the product. This is not the time to stick with the status quo. If the traditional products and firefighting methods have proved incapable of helping us to effectively combat the ravaging fires that have been doing the palongo dance in our domains, then we should paradigmatically shift to another attractive option, which the F-500 EA typifies.
We must all act prudently in combating fire incidents where we fail to prevent its outbreaks in towns and cities across the country. We must slow down its ferocity at consuming lives and property, and leaving in its trails anguish and emptiness. After all, life is more important than fire even though both are comparable and extinguish eventually.
Otto Weininger, an Austrian philosopher, corroborated this in his postulation, to wit: “Among the notable things about fire is that it also requires oxygen to burn – exactly like its enemy, life. Thereby are life and flames so often compared.” An American author, educator, and clergyman, Henry Jackson Vandyke, Jr., expounded further that “Man is the only creature that dares to light a fire and live with it. The reason? Because he alone has learned to put it out.”
How utilitarian have the various means of putting out fires been to us? It is eternally painful that fire has been on a perpetual voyage of visitation, snatching from us our loved ones; and what have we been able to deploy to put them out?
On December 28, 2015, over 300 shops and other items worth millions of naira were reportedly razed by fire at the Sango plank market in Ibadan. On December 29, 2016, a midnight fire reportedly razed a section of the Gombe Old Market, consumed 48 shops as well as destroyed property worth millions of naira.
On January 7, this year, a midnight fire gutted part of the Nnewi Timber Market in Anambra State, destroying goods and machines worth billions of naira. \Also, on January 8, a seven-storey building, known as Brazas Plaza, located at the Balogun market extension on Lagos Island, was gutted by fire, which destroyed multi-million naira goods, valuables, including cash.
While on February 16, this year, a night fire razed a filling station, 15 vehicles and some nearby buildings along the Upper New Market Road, Onitsha, and destroyed other property worth millions of naira; it was the turn of nine shops at the popular estate roundabout market in Warri, on February 19.
On April 11, this year, the administrative building of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) in Lagos was razed by fire. And much recently, on July 15, property worth millions of naira was destroyed by fire which razed at least 35 shops at Ogunpa/Oke Bola area of Ibadan. On July 16, the fire incident at the LINC Oil and Gas’ tank farm in Calabar Free Trade Zone reportedly killed more than 30 persons.
The list is not exhaustive. The human fatalities are benumbing. The material losses are staggering. We cannot continue to watch the lives of our kith and kin cut short abruptly by ravaging fires. Whereas, “when man invented fire”, according to Steven Moffat, Coupling/#4:‘Inferno’ (original airdate June 2, 2000), “he didn’t say, ‘Hey, let’s cook’. He said, ‘Great, now we can see naked bottoms in the dark’.”
But the fire that Moffat immaterially describes in these celebrated lines has exceeded the circumscribed expectation of illuminating only naked bums; it is now consuming bums indiscriminately – both covered and naked – and almost overwhelming our sense of responsibility and sensitivity. We must act to effectively and efficiently contain it by embracing innovative firefighting solutions.
Otherwise, we may be deuced as Tennessee Williams, an American playwright (1911-1983) surmised: “We all live in a house on fire, no fire department to call; no way out, just the upstairs window to look out of while the fire burns the house down with us trapped, locked in it.” This, evidently, should be far away from our contemplation now that there are arrays of new firefighting innovative technologies from which to choose. Did I hear you say: God forbid; we will not be trapped by raging fire? Then, we must commit ourselves to doing the right things.
Ojeifo, an Abuja-based journalist, contributed this piece via ojwonderngr@yahoo.com[myad]
The Senate has given a legal teeth to the Whistle-blower policy of the federal government, having passed a bill that seeks to encourage and facilitate the disclosures of improper conduct by public officers and public bodies.
The Chartered Insurance Institute of Nigeria (CIIN) has elected Mrs. Funmi Babington-Ashaye as its 48th President. The new President, a former Managing Director of Cornerstone Insurance and NICON, is the sixth female president of the Institute.
How To Resuscitate 2 Nigerian Sleeping Giants, By Prince E. O. Omadivi
My intention was to urge President Muhammadu Buhari when he was sworn in on May 29, 2015 to bring back two National Assets which were strategic to Nigeria as a nation but the president beat me to it when he announced the resuscitation of our national carrier: the Nigeria Airways.
I will not therefore delve much into that area. But it has to be noted that serious countries desiring to maintain internal and external security will not leave this area to all-comers.
My attention is therefore focused on National Insurance Corporation of Nigeria (NICON), a statutory Corporation set up in 1969 pursuant to the promulgation of the National Insurance decree No. 22 of 1969, later cited as National Insurance Corporation of Nigeria Act (cap.263) LFN 1990 with a loan of 2million pounds, which was repaid in 1971. The Corporation did not take any subvention or capital vote from Government. Rather, it relied solely on Premium Income and Investment from the public and private sectors of the economy.
Based on the UNCTAD report in 1969, it emphasized the need for a strong national company that would among other things, stop the outflow of foreign exchange and pool resources in a company that would be beneficial to the Federal Government. In a foreword by the late maximum military leader Gen. Sani Abacha to a book titled: NICON at 25, published in 1994, he stated among other things that “…NICON Insurance, founded in 1969, has grown into the biggest, most outstanding and most reliable Insurance Company in the country and possibly on the African continent, with a reputation based on service and performance.”
As a government company then, NICON assisted government to set up banks, hotels and real estate development. Worthy of mention are Niger Insurance Plc, Inland Containers Ltd., NICON Hotels Ltd. (owners of the then prestigious NICON NOGA Hilton Hotel), NICON Trustees Ltd., National Properties Ltd. and Daily Times of Nigeria (this was held in trust by NICON for government).
In fact, NICON Insurance was instrumental to the smooth movement of seat of government from Lagos to Abuja with the NICON NOGA Hilton Hotel serving as safe haven to Civil Servants and others in 1991.
SALE OF THE INSURANCE GIANT
Whatever may have informed the sale of government assets including the strategic ones, can today be seen as a selfish arrangement. Cronies of government were given these assets for peanuts with allegations that some like NICON, were never paid for.
Although there is a school of thought which believes that government has no business in business, the privatization of NICON, whose midwife was Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) was equally questioned by good spirited Nigerians including the then Yahaya Kwande – led Board of the Company. They based their arguments on the fact that the government company was doing well especially in the areas of assisting the growth of the economy and serving as a huge employer of labour. The proponents also believed that what should have been privatized were the companies that were not doing well. Why, for example, was the Nigeria Railways not privatized? There is no doubt that Insurance is also about reinsurance and it was risky leaving the big assets of government in the hands of small private insurance companies whose asset base put together could not stand that of NICON before its sale All said and done, this hitherto insurance giant which had offices and other property dotted all over Nigeria, big asset base, office in UK and huge investments scattered all over the country, was ‘dashed’ to a core investor whose role in the sale was questionable. The Corporation’s foreign account in UK alone was almost sufficient to pay for the sale by the new investor.
The NICON of the ‘60s, which ended up in the hands of a controversial individual in 2006 is no longer playing the role it was initially set up to perform. Some people now see the once-upon-a-time Insurance giant as a ghost of its old self. And predictably, in a short while, the NICON plaza which represents the company in Abuja and Nigeria will be converted to an hotel.
People who had argued in the past that NICON Insurance was a monopoly did not quite appreciate the meaning of the word. NICON was not a monopoly, rather, a captive market of its owners, the Federal Government, just as the old Great Nigeria, Royal Exchange, Prestige and UNIC.
REVSITING THE SALE OF NICON
While I will not advocate a probe of all government assets “dashed out” as privatized, the case of NICON Insurance has become imperative. The probe should look at how BPE sold NICON without first repealing the act that set it up, the shady sale and more importantly, the balkanization of the Corporation through a dubious unbundling of its assets and the trapped 2.3billion naira staff pension fund in the coffers of the new investor. These and many more are well-known to BPE and their conspirators.
Resuscitating NICON may not necessarily mean giving the same name to the new company. Once the sale is revisited, the Federal Government should set in motion the establishment of another state Insurance Company. This becomes necessary where the old NICON cannot be returned to its original owners. There is not a serious country that will allow its strategic assets to remain unsecured. France and many other countries still maintain state Insurance Companies.
The pathetic plight of former NICON staff, who toiled to make the Corporation what it was pre-privatization, is yet another cup of tea for the Federal Government. They were paid off in 2006 and their entitlements, regarded as shortfalls, are yet to be paid after 11 years of Privatization. Some have died while those still alive and pensionable are not on monthly pension.
It is gladdening to note that the present government is working assiduously to ensure that pension arrears are settled once and for all. It is in this light that we commend PTAD for trying to remove the heap of rubbish left by the dubious BPE and do the needful. Some of the former BPE Chief Executives need to be brought to book for their roles in the shady sales of some government assets, including NICON Insurance. Time shall tell as we wait eagerly for the resuscitation of the two sleeping giants.
Prince Omadivi Emman, a PR & Advert consultant wrote from Abuja.[myad]