A FIRE outbreak razed down part of the council chamber of the Katsina Government House in the early hours of Monday, September 2.
The chamber is attached to the governor’s office, where he meets with important dignitaries.
The cause of the fire remained unknown, while details were sketchy when filing this report.
The chief press secretary to the Governor, Ibrahim Mohammed, while speaking with The ICIR, noted the state governor, Dikko Umaru Radda, was not in the office when the incident happened.
He explained that the governor attended a zonal town hall meeting outside the Katsina town while the fire raged.
“First and foremost, the governor wasn’t in the office. We were having a public engagement on the 2025 budget where he wanted to get feedback from the citizens on what they expected to be in the budget. We just finished from Funtua and we are now in Daura.
”So just on our way to Daura, we heard about the unfortunate incident in the Government House. I don’t have full details of what happened because I am not in Katsina town.
“But I learnt that it’s only the council chamber that was burnt, which is just part of the governor’s office,” he told The ICIR.
Meanwhile, according to Punch, a source named Alhaji Bashir, whose house is near the Government House in Katsina, confirmed that the fire began around 6 a.m.
He said, “I saw a fire service truck rushing in. I was in my house as early as 6 am after prayers, a fire service truck rushed into the Government House, and I later learnt there was an inferno inside the red chamber where Governor Dikko used to host guests.”
Usman Mustapha is a solution journalist with International Centre for Investigative Reporting. You can easily reach him via: [email protected]. He tweets @UsmanMustapha_M