Premium Times: Fire outbreak won’t affect operations

The management of Premium Times newspaper says operations will continue despite the fire outbreak at its head office.

The fire, which started around 1:30pm on Friday, was said to have affected the office of Musikilu Mojeed, the newspaper’s editor-in-chief. 

Speaking with TheCable on Saturday, Festus Owete, general editor of the newspaper, said although the office will not be accessible for some time, it will not affect publishing.

“The cleaners will go there and start cleaning up the place because there is no way one can work in such an environment,” Owete said.

“Since last year 2020, most of us started working virtually. I can always stay home and file my stories as long as people on my desk are aware. So it really will not affect our operations, especially when it comes to working and publishing stories.

“The only thing affected yesterday was our editorial meeting because we hold editorial meetings on Fridays. Although it is also done virtually, some of us come to the office because there is a better network service.”

Providing more details on the incident, Ade Adesomoju, assistant editor, said: “We noticed smoke coming out through the windows of his office (editor-in-chief). We tried to see if we could help so we broke down the door, but the smoke was too thick. We tried to use the handy fire extinguisher it was overwhelming.

“We called the fire services. The federal fire service came first about 15-20 minutes after we called them. The FCT fire service came about 10 minutes after the federal service had brought the fire under control.”