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An early morning fire outbreak has ravaged the popular building materials market at Jabi, opposite Chida Hotel, in Abuja, destroying shops and goods worth millions of naira.

The fire reportedly began in the early hours of Sunday, with an eyewitness recounting how traders and residents were alerted to the incident around 3 am.

According to the eyewitness who spoke to the NTA, his brother-in-law received a distress call from one of his colleagues at the plaza informing him that the market was on fire.

He said they immediately rushed to the scene, only to discover that the situation had already become severe.

“We were at home this morning, as early as 3 am and my brother-in-law received a call from one of his colleagues here in the plaza that the plaza was on fire. So we had to rush down to this place. On getting here, we discovered that the situation was so bad,” he said.

The eyewitness disclosed that his brother-in-law owns two shops and a packing store within the affected plaza.

He said only one of the shops was saved, while the other shop and the packing store were completely destroyed by the inferno.

“In this plaza, my brother-in-law has two shops and a packing store. Unfortunately, it was just one of the shops that was saved. The other shop and the packing store were totally damaged by the fire,” he added.

He further disclosed that roofing materials worth more than N20 million were destroyed in the fire, noting that some of the materials had only recently been restored.

“Over here, you see some of the roofs that we still have here. We are talking about a roof that is worth over N20 million lost in this fire,” he said.

“Because the other shop, we had roofs that were just restucked last night. And then the packing store also, we had roofs that were just restucked last night.”

Despite the scale of the destruction, the eyewitness expressed relief that no life was lost in the incident.

“In our situation, we give thanks to God that no life was lost in this situation,” he said.

The cause of the fire was not immediately known as of the time of filing this report.

The extent of damage to other businesses within the popular Jabi building materials market was also yet to be ascertained as SaharaReporters has not been able to get the comments of the FCT Police Command on the incident.

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. Arrests cross-border kingpin; recovers cocaine, heroin from iron safe seized at Rivers drug den

Operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) have intercepted consignments of captagon, widely known as ‘Jihadi drug’ and millions of opioid pills worth over N6.2 billion at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), Ikeja Lagos.

The captagon shipment was seized at the Lagos airport on Saturday 22nd August 2026 following the arrest of a 49-year-old cross-border kingpin Akinbile Kazeem Aikins, who arrived from Accra Ghana aboard an African World Airlines flight.

A search of his carton of local bathing soap, popularly called “Ghana Soap,” led to the recovery of 47,200 pills of the illicit amphetamine drug worth over N1.5 billion concealed within blocks of soap. Captagon, which is notoriously dubbed the ‘Jihadi drug’ for its use in funding extremist activities in conflict zones, was first intercepted in Nigeria by NDLEA in September 2021 at the Apapa port in Lagos. After his arrest, Akinbile claimed he was meant to deliver the consignment in the North.

In another successful interdiction operation at the Lagos airport, no fewer than 3,900,030 tablets of Tramaking 225mg and Tapentadol 250mg, with a combined gross weight of 2,787.40 kilograms and more than N4.6 billion in street value, were recovered from four abandoned consignments at the import shed of the MMIA. Three of the consignments, comprising 900,000 tablets of Tramaking (815.40kg), arrived aboard RwandAir flights from Bangladesh, while a fourth, comprising 3,000,030 tablets of Tapentadol (1,972kg), arrived on Qatar Airways from Amsterdam.

The shipments, which had been placed under close watch after no one showed up to claim them, were formally retrieved after a joint examination by NDLEA officers, Customs and other stakeholders on Friday 28th August.
A 31-year-old US-returnee, Sowunmi David Oludotun was on 19th August arrested by NDLEA operatives at Ikate area of Lekki after he showed up to take delivery of 3.350 kilograms of Loud, a synthetic strain of cannabis imported from the United Kingdom.

Fireproof safe cracked open in Rivers drug den raid In Rivers state, NDLEA operatives have raided the notorious Abuja Down/Up area of Port Harcourt where they recovered a fireproof iron safe among other items. When the safe was cracked open with a welding machine on Tuesday 25th August, 237 grams of colorado; 316 grams of cocaine, and 10 grams of heroin were recovered from it.

Three suspects: Oyedele Daniel, 42; Taye Saliu, 36; and Kehinde Saliu, 36, were on Friday 28th August nabbed at Ipele-Idoani road, in Ondo state with a total of 728kg skunk recovered from their truck marked KRE 120 XB. Two other suspects: Uche Joseph, 35, and Godwin Umeh, 21, were arrested at Aponmu forest with 341kg of same substance on Wednesday 26th August.

In Delta state, over 176,000 pills of assorted opioids including tramadol, molly and others were recovered from two interdiction operations in parts of the state between Wednesday 26th and Friday 28th August.
With the same vigour, Commands and formations of the Agency across the country continued their War Against Drug Abuse (WADA) sensitization activities to schools, worship centres, work places and communities among others in the past week. These include: WADA enlightenment lecture to students and staff of Markaz Littahfizul Quran Wal Islamiyyat, Dadin Kowa, Gombe; Zangina Islamiyyah Alasawa Kurna, Ungogo LGA, Kano; youths at the adolescent lifestyle programme organised by NNPCL in Benin city, Edo state; while the Ondo State Command of NDLEA paid a WADA advocacy visit to the State Governor, Dr. Lucky Aiyedatiwa, with the Taraba state command of the Agency paying a similar advocacy visit to the State Governor, Dr. Agbu Kefas, among others.

While commending the officers and men of MMIA, Ondo, and Delta Commands for the various successful operations, Chairman/Chief Executive Officer of NDLEA, Brig. Gen. Mohamed Buba Marwa (rtd) enjoined them and their colleagues across the country to continue with the ongoing balanced approach to the drug control efforts of the Agency.
He also directed them to sustain the momentum against drug traffickers who are desperate to explore every means, including concealment in everyday household items like soap, to move their illicit consignments.

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The Federal Government has approved N10bn for the 2026 National Research Fund Grant Cycle of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund.

TETFund, in a call for concept notes, said the grant would support research projects across 30 priority thematic areas under Humanities and Social Sciences; Science, Engineering, Technology and Innovation; and Cross-Cutting.

The fund said the 2026 grant cycle followed the successful completion of the 2025 cycle, which resulted in the award of a little over N6.09bn to support 174 research projects.

According to TETFund, accessing the 2026 NRF grant will begin with the submission of concept notes by Principal Investigators of proposed research projects.

Only Principal Investigators whose concept notes are evaluated and considered fundable will be invited to submit full proposals.

Who can apply?

TETFund said lecturers in public tertiary institutions in Nigeria are eligible to apply for the grant.

Sustainable Use of Natural Resources and Terrestrial Ecosystems
Transport and Infrastructure
Water and Sanitation

Cross-Cutting

Blue Economy
Clean and Affordable Energy
Entrepreneurship and Wealth Creation
Environment, Housing, Urban and Regional Development
Innovation and Technology in National Defence Capabilities
Resource Governance
National System of Innovation

The call was signed by the TETFund Executive Secretary, Arc. Sonny S. T. Echono, PhD, FNIA, OON.

For enquiries, applicants can contact the TETFund NRF Secretariat through [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] and [email protected].