No immediate cause has been given for the outbreak, but some witnesses suggested it may have been a result of an electrical failure.

Some of the traders lamented that they had lost goods worth billions of naira to the inferno.

According to them, operatives of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) only arrived the scene about three hours after the fire had started.

They, therefore, called on the government to set up a fire service point in the market to forestall future outbreaks.