The Great Ebeano Fire

At about 6 pm on Tuesday, sad news filtered through the airwaves that Ebeano Supermarket (Lekki branch) was ablaze. As the news sank in, sympathy and emotion took the reins. However, reason popped up at some point as I realized that there are indeed many positives to take from the incidence, depressing as the news might sound. Yes, you heard me right . . . POSITIVES.

It only requires a little thinking outside the box to change the gloomy narrative to one of inspiration. I say this because history tells us that The Great Fire of London gave way to the modern city of London - a pace setter of its time.  The Great Chicago Fire birthed the new Chicago city – the third largest city in the U.S and home to the world's first skyscraper.

So what positives can we take from “The Great Ebeano Fire?”

1. Ride the current wave of popularity:                                                                             Ebeano is currently in the news. It has both the sympathy and attention of the public and that makes for an excellent PR opportunity to sell the vision of the supermarket chain. The company can come out with a clear statement thus:
   
   

   “We are Ebeano supermarket, a one-stop shopping supermarket chain. We lost our Lekki branch, which will reopen in three months’ time. Meanwhile we have five other location at Gbagada, Isheri Magodo; Chevron Drive, Bluecrest Mall, and Ikota Shopping Complex all in Lekki . Do continue to patronize us.”                                                                 

2. Build a better outlet                                                                                             Starting all over again presents a huge advantage. The firm now has the hindsight to design and build a better outlet, to avoid all the mistakes it made last time.                                                                      
3. Highlight the importance of Insurance & safety management systems    Insurance firms can use this incidence to highlight the importance of buying insurance. Safety firms can ride on this to promote corporate investment in workplace safety systems and equipment.                                                                                                    
4. Learn from the entire experience:                                                                         Every misfortune is a unique opportunity to learn and grow. Disasters help to figure out a lot about ourselves, the extent of our capabilities, and life in general. Ebeano can go on to become a better retail outfit from this experience if they actually learn from it

Do not get me wrong. I do understand the gravity of such a loss and the frustration and pain it brings. However, such mishaps will be the more tragic if no lessons are learnt from them.