By CHRISTIAN NJOKU

Vice-Chancellor of the University of Calabar, Prof. Florence Obi, on Saturday lamented the absence of a functional fire service in Calabar.

Speaking with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), Prof. Obi recounted her frustrations in getting assistance to put out a fire that razed the institution’s central store on Thursday.

“When I received the emergency call on Thursday night, I rushed to the State Fire Service and they said their trucks were down; the Federal Fire Service said the same thing.

“I rushed to the Nigerian Ports Authority, but they told me they were discharging fuel, so they could not move their truck.

“Painfully, I called the Federal Airports Authority and the person that picked the call said their trucks were also down.

“This was heart-breaking because I thought the airport was supposed to have standby fire trucks for emergencies,’’ she said.

The federal and the Cross River Fire Services at the Margaret Ekpo International Airport, Calabar are few metres away from the university.

Prof. Obi said it was only the Export Processing Zone that eventually allowed its fire truck to move to the site of the fire and by then it was three hours late.

“Even when the truck got to the scene, it could not do anything.

“It was the students who had already put out 85 per cent of the fire that had to be fetching water from the fire truck to complete the job,’’ she lamented.

The vice-chancellor said she was very proud of the students for their efforts.

Prof. Obi told NAN that earlier, the students and available staff were fetching water from the hostels to put out the fire.

They evacuated nearby buildings; the Students Affairs building and the Medical Centre building to avoid further damage, she said.

She appealed to the federal and state governments to ensure that facilities at Fire Services were functional.

She also called on the governments to assist the institution to replace everything it lost to the fire at its central store, especially equipment donated by the Tertiary Education Trust Fund.

Prof. Obi appealed to Cross River’s State Emergency Management Agency, the National Emergency Management Agency, the varsity’s alumni and corporate organisations to assist the institution.

She thanked the police, the army, the Department of State Security and other security agencies for their support.

The vice-chancellor noted that the security agencies had set up a panel to investigate the immediate and remote causes of the fire and what was lost to it. (NAN)

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