Midnight fire outbreak at the weekend, razed down a multi-millionaire factory of Louis Carter Industries Nigeria Limited, producers of motorcycle spare parts and allied products at Akaboukwu Uruagu Nnewi, Anambra State.
The incident according to a source, started at about 10:00pm and raged for six hours despite the intervention of the men of the fire service who were said to have arrived one hour and thirty minutes later.
Commenting on the incident, the General Manager of the company, Mr. Ndubisi Okoli said the company’s security men had alerted him about the incident.
Okoli alleged that the fire outbreak was caused by an explosion of high tension cable of the Enugu Electricity Distribution Company (EEDC), adding that raw materials and crushing machines worth over N500million were lost.
In his reaction, owner of the factory and Chairman, Chief Executive Officer of Louis Carter Group of Companies, Chief Louis Onwugbenu said the fire incident had caused a huge loss to the company that had hundreds of workers at the section that got burnt in its employ.
Onwugbenu acknowledged the effort of Chief Innocent Chukwuma, Chairman of the Innoson Group and member representing Nnewi North in Anambra State House of Assembly, Hon. Nonso Smart who he said were physically present to motivate the fight against the fire.
Onwugbenu said it would cause him huge amount of money to rebuild the factory, adding that he was uncomfortable about the number of workers that had been thrown out of job because of the fire outbreak.
He, however, appealed to Governor Willie Obiano of Anambra State to come to the aid of the company.
He said if the governor could reconstruct an access road that leads to the company from the major highway; it would ease up his burden.