Supreme Court fire incident did not affect Presidential election petition materials – Spokesman

The Supreme Court has assured Nigerians that the fire outbreak that occurred at the apex court building on Monday morning did not affect any material connected with the presidential election petition.

The Public Relations Officer of the Supreme Court, Festus Akande, gave the assurance during an interview on Arise TV shortly after the fire incident.

He said the fire outbreak occurred in one chamber of the court and affected the library, computer gadgets and other equipment.

Akande said: “Actually there was a fire incident in the Supreme Court this morning and it affected just one chamber. Contrary to the information being peddled on social media, the Supreme Court was not and is not under invasion from hoodlums or any miscreants.

“It was just as a result of maybe an electrical malfunction or so. That was the result of the preliminary investigation we have carried out so far.

“Further investigations are still ongoing now. So, we can’t say categorically what caused it but from what we have found out this morning, it was an electrical fault. And good enough, the Supreme Court is well equipped with fire appliances and a staff (member) was able to come to it immediately.

“And they were able to deploy all the fire extinguishers that are installed on all the floors of the court and they were able to douse the fire before we got help from the fire service outside the Supreme Court.”

Akande also confirmed that the fire was put out within an hour.

“The staff were already in offices, and it didn’t take them up to an hour to put out the fire,” Akande stated.

Asked if the offices of judges were affected, the Supreme Court spokesperson said, “Since it wasn’t a very serious issue, there was no point evacuating anybody.”

“As a matter of fact, there is no single connection, and it will not affect anything at all in the court because this incident occurred in a chamber and the chamber is equipped with computers and other equipment, and also, a functional library being used by any justice that occupies such chamber.

“The only thing we can say has been affected are the books, the stationary and the computer equipment that are in the chamber. Even for the books, they are replaceable. They are in hard copies and we also have an e-library in the Supreme Court.

“So, nothing was affected and the damage was not much that could give us any form of setback. That I can assure you.”