Fed Poly Ado Ekiti’s School of engineering gutted by fire

According to The Sun newspaper, the School of Engineer­ing complex of the Federal Polytechnic, Ado-Ekiti, was at the week­end gutted by fire, which completely burnt the offices of the Dean and other ad­journing offices including those of the Departmental Heads of Mechanical, Civil, Electrical/ Electronics and Agricultural Engineering and a large classroom.

The ravaging fire was first noticed at 11 pm on Friday. It took the combined efforts of the men of the Ekiti State Fire Service, the Polytechnic

Fire Service team, security of­ficials and students who took risks to prevent the fire from spreading to other facilities in the School.

Commenting on the inci­dent, the Rector of the poly­technic, Dr. Taiwo Akande, who also took part in the four-hour effort to put the fire under control, along with members of the Governing Council, described it as a di­saster of monumental propor­tions, with so many sensitive and irreplaceable documents and materials ranging from computer systems, furniture items, office cabinets and the building complex consumed by the inferno.

She said that an emergency meeting of the Governing Council was still in session around 11:05 pm when some students raised the alarm about the fire.

This caused pandemo­nium as everyone responded promptly by making calls to persons and organizations that could assist in putting out the fire.

Akande added that the in­tensity of the fire was so much that the combined efforts of the men of the Ekiti State Fire Service, the Polytechnic fire fighting officers and the stu­dents’ strenuous efforts to put it out proved abortive.

She however noted that although the cause of the fire was yet to be ascertained be­cause there was neither elec­tricity supply nor any bush burning at the time of the in­cident, investigators would be commissioned to unravel the mystery behind the inferno.

Lamenting the tragic inci­dent, Akande said the loss in­curred by the polytechnic was colossal and appealed to the Ekiti State Government, the National Emergency Man­agement Agency (NEMA), the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND), and other arms of the Federal Govern­ment to come to the aid of the Polytechnic in mitigating the loss, the paper reported