Business Post Contributor
By Bliss Okperan
The early morning fire that gutted a part of the Supreme Court complex in Abuja has been blamed on an electrical malfunction.
The Director of Information of the apex court, Mr Festus Akande, said this on Monday morning when he appeared on Arise Television’s breakfast programme, The Morning Show.
According to him, preliminary investigation showed that the fire was triggered by an electrical fault, playing down rumours that the Supreme Court was attacked by arsonists.
Attention is on the apex court over the outcome of the presidential election held on Saturday, February 15, 2023.
The Appeal Court recently upheld the election of President Bola Tinubu to the dismay of the candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Labour Party (LP), Mr Atiku Abubakar and Mr Peter Obi, respectively.
The two leading opposition parties rejected the ruling of the appellate court, heading to the apex court to upturn the judgement in their favour.
During his interview today, Mr Akande said all the vital documents of the court are intact, noting that there are soft copies that can be reproduced if needed.
He noted that the fire only affected one chamber, adding that, “The incident happened this morning, between 7:30 am and 8:00 am.”
“It didn’t take the workers time to deploy the fire. Only one chamber was affected,” he stated, stressing that, “We have CCTV cameras and everything should be intact.”
“[The fire] affected just one chamber. Contrary to the information carried out on social media, the Supreme Court is not under any invasion from hoodlums or witchcraft,” he emphasised.
Mr Akande stated that the fire was quickly brought under control by members of staff of the apex court, noting that though “the building does not have sprinklers, we have new modern gadgets [like fire extinguishers, which] were used more effectively” to put out the inferno.
