Jos Traders Struggle to Rebuild After Terminus Market Inferno

When the fire began to spread through Jos Main Market, popularly known as Terminus Market in Plateau State, Central Nigeria, in the late hours of April 29, Hassan Ibrahim was already asleep. It was the persistent ringing of his phone at 11 p.m. that finally jolted him awake. It was his brother.

“I didn’t understand what he was saying at first,” he recalls. “He was shouting, telling me the market was on fire. I thought it was a joke.”

But by the time Ibrahim arrived, after a twenty-minute commute from his home in Rikkos, two kilometres away, it was no joke. A ghastly sight awaited him. Huge plumes of smoke billowed across his view as the awning beside him burst into orange flames. The air was charged and suffocating, the acrid smell of burning zinc, trampoline, fabric, and wood filling his lungs. In those seconds, Ibrahim made a split-second decision. He dashed into the inferno, weaving through smouldering heaps where stalls once stood. He was not alone. Scores of others braved the flames, desperate to salvage the businesses they had poured their lives into.

With no firefighters in sight, the shapeless orange blaze raced on, devouring everything in its path. The flames licked at Ibrahim’s heels, singeing him. With swift, deliberate steps, he reached his stall, hoping to rescue what he could. He hoisted a satchel from the ground over his shoulders, his lean frame buckling beneath the weight of the clothes that had sustained him for the past six years, and moved them to a section of the market yet untouched by fire.

Fuelled by adrenaline, he made several trips, barely escaping the stall before its ceiling caved in. Blackened with smoke, he returned to where he had moved his goods, only to find they had vanished.

“We were able to drag out some bundles of clothes,” he says. “But before we could even breathe, people came and stole them. Right there in front of us. As we saved clothes from the fire, those pretending to help us were looting what we had just rescued.”

The fire destroyed over 500 makeshift shops, worth millions of Naira, leaving behind little more than charred debris. What the flames didn’t consume, looters did.

According to Joyce Ramnap, the Plateau State Commissioner for Information and Communications, an electric spark may have caused the fire. Although the government has promised to investigate the incident, no new findings have been released to date.

This is not the first tragedy the market has suffered. In July 2018, a fire razed 270 shops, destroying goods and property worth millions of Naira.

In the aftermath of this latest blaze, Ibrahim and countless others were left with nothing but wreckage and despair. For many, the market was their only means of survival.

In the days that followed, government officials visited the site. Humanitarian workers came too, offering words of comfort and making donations.

“We were hopeful and encouraged when we saw the donations coming in. They said help was on the way, that we’d get money to rebuild. But it’s been weeks, and nothing has come,” says Musa Bello*, a trader who sells traditional men’s suits.

Babangida Nuru, secretary of the market association, revealed that about ₦13 million had been received in donations. He insists the committee is currently assessing the scale of destruction to ensure fair distribution of funds.

“The fire affected people at different levels. Some business owners lost everything, while others sustained minimal damage. We’ll begin distributions shortly,” he told JoeyOffAir.

He also noted that some looters had been apprehended.

“These people came at night in cars and moved people’s goods to different locations. They started selling them at other markets, and sometimes, someone would recognise his clothes on display and raise the alarm.”

For Bello, taking a loan has become the only path forward.

“I’ve started rebuilding my shop. I have a good relationship with some suppliers, so it’s easier to get clothes on credit. Once I sell, I’ll use the profit to repay them and continue rebuilding,” he says.

Other traders are doing the same, some borrowing from cooperatives, others from neighbours. Makeshift stalls, pieced together from wooden scraps, now line the edge of the ruined market.

Among the traders, a quiet resilience and deep faith in God remain.

“God was the one who gave us these things in the first place. I believe He can restore even more than this,” Bello says with conviction.

*This indicates pseudonyms that were used to protect the identities of the sources. 

FEATURED PHOTO: Qosim Suleiman/Premium Times