Property destroyed as fire razes church auditorium in Lagos

Property worth millions of naira were destroyed in a fire incident that occured at the Household of David Church in Surulere street, Adeniyi Jones in the Ikeja LGA of Lagos state.

The fire incident reportedly occurred on Wednesday morning.

Ibrahim Farinloye, territorial coordinator of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), confirmed the incident to journalists.

Farinloye said the fire, which started at the rear end of the church, was not noticed by the church workers but by passersby who drew the attention of the workers to the incident.

“No injury or casualty was recorded,” Farinloye said.

The church auditorium, including its furnishings and equipment, were destroyed by the fire.

Farinloye added that the fire was successfully put out by officials of NEMA, Lagos State Building Control Agency, Lagos State Emergency Management Agency, the state fire service and the police.

Reacting to the incident, Olusola Osunmakinde, senior pastor of church, described the incident as “a painful experience”.

Osunmakinde said the church was billed to use the auditorium for a programme called “Mercy Conference” on that day.

“As we know, ‘Mercy Conference’ starts today, but something happened that I just want to put a message out there to people,” Osunmakinde said.

“I came here this morning, everybody was setting up, everything was going fine. All of a sudden, we started hearing that there was fire and something up there on the roof of the church. I know there will be reactions, and people will say that and that, but that is none of my concern now.

“But the most important thing is this, we thank God no life was lost and we thank God for everything. We are not too discouraged but we believe in God that we will still go on with the conference.

“I just want to say this to everyone out there, we are not sad, we are happy for all things work together, the Bible didn’t say all good things, all things both bad and ugly.

“It is a painful experience no doubt but in the name of Jesus we are more than conquerors.

“Even someone walked into the compound and was actually mocking, saying, ‘Where is Jesus when this happened?’ We don’t owe such people an answer, all we believe is that all things work together.

“We will not back out because of this but by the grace of God, all things work together for good.”