The building of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in Abuja was never gutted by fire, the apex bank’s corporate communications director, Isaac Okorafor, said on Tuesday evening. Describing reports of fire outbreak at the CBN headquarters as false, Okorafor said rumour of the incident started when a passer-by saw a pall of exhaust from the CBN generator house and mistook it for fire.

“The CBN maintains a total security system that triggers safety alarms in the presence of smoke and so all fire engines and personnel received the alert only to discover that it was an unusual pall of exhaust,” he said. “The affected generator has been rested and normal work has been going on uninterrupted, while the engineers are working to rectify the issues with the generator.

“We hereby assure the general public that there has been no fire at
our building.”

According to reports, members of the public had noticed a huge smoke, which began at about 6pm, from a generator located some 20 feats away from the CBN main building.

The huge smoke covered a section of the building up to the roof and left the security guards and other staff on duty in frenzy. But it was brought under control by staff in the bank’s internal fire control department.