NIGERIA: The Nigerian army has begun an inquiry into an armoury fire which killed over 600 people in Lagos and threw doubt on whether the tragedy was set off by an accidental blaze at a nearby street market.
The government also announced it would relocate the armoury, where Nigeria's most powerful bombs and other armaments are stored, from the crowded residential district of Lagos to a safer location.
"The chief of army staff has instituted a board of inquiry to look into the situation and find out the real causes," army spokesman Col Felix Chukwuma said.
President Olusegun Obasanjo ordered the investigation when he visited the devastated Ikeja barracks in a northern district of Lagos on Monday.
The Defence Minister, Mr Theophilus Danjuma, appeared to give credence to growing speculation that the devastation of Nigeria's principal armoury was not caused just by an accidental fire. "Anything already said by any military officer is premature," Mr Danjuma said when he paid a sympathy call on Lagos State Governor Bola Tinubu.
Military officials had given the cause of the multiple explosions on Sunday as a fire which started from a street market near the armoury.
"The market is far away from the depot," Col Chukwuma said.
Mr Danjuma's comments also appeared to refer to statements by the commander of the Ikeja cantonment, Brig Gen George Emdin, who went on state television to dispel rumours that the explosions on Sunday were the beginnings of a coup.
He had also appeared to blame authorities for delaying plans to modernise what he said was a rusty armoury.