Fire razes Premium Times head office

Fire razed a section of the PREMIUM TIMES head office in Abuja on Friday, damaging the newspaper’s newsroom and destroying properties.

The building was evacuated as staff and witnesses used extinguishers to battle the inferno before firefighters arrived at the scene in the Wuse area of the federal capital.

The raze started at about 1.30p.m. forcing the newspaper’s weekly editorial meeting scheduled to start a few hours later to be called off.

There were no casualties.

The flames were declared under control shortly after, and officials of the Fire Service at the scene said they suspected an electrical fault as the cause of the fire.

Investigation into the incident is expected to continue.

Premium Times has been a key participant in the global International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ)-led Pandora Papers project which has led to the leaked offshore businesses and dealings of three Nigerian governors and others, so far.

The project saw 600 journalists from 150 news organisations around the world poring through a trove of 11.9 million confidential files, contextualising information, tracking down sources and analysing public records and other documents.

The leaked files were retrieved from some offshore services firms around the world that set up shell companies and other offshore entities for clients, many of them influential politicians and business persons.