“UBA House at Marina, Lagos caught fire, and the building has only elevators and no stairs, causing unsafe escape attempts.”

1. Fire location and the core correction

Multiple fact-checks and mainstream outlets identify the burning building as Afriland Towers on Broad Street, not UBA House on Marina; Africa Check and AllAfrica present the corrected identification, and UBA itself said its Marina head office was not affected while acknowledging a fire at a Broad Street building that houses one of its branches ^{[1] [5] [2]}. UBA’s public statements and repeated press coverage consistently disentangle the widely shared video and posts from the bank’s white-marble headquarters, making the central “UBA House Marina on fire” narrative demonstrably inaccurate ^{[6] [7]}.

2. What actually happened at Afriland Towers

Reporting paints a chaotic scene: Afriland Towers, a six‑storey commercial block, suffered a blaze that emergency services said began in an inverter room and produced thick smoke that spread through the building, impeding exits ^{[8] [9]}. Eyewitness videos circulating on social media showed workers attempting to flee through windows and, in some clips, jumping to escape smoke and flames, images that fueled alarm across Lagos Island’s busy business district ^{[4] [10]}.

3. Casualty and damage reports: conflicting but serious

News coverage diverges on the death toll and injuries—some outlets report at least seven confirmed dead and multiple fatalities attributed to the incident, while other reports described a “minor incident” with smoke and no casualties, reflecting early confusion and the fluidity of information in fast-moving disasters ^{[11] [12] [13]}. Broadcaster and local agency updates—such as the BBC Pidgin and Punch—note confirmed deaths among staff of agencies housed there, while UBA and some officials kept initial statements focused on staff safety and follow-up investigations ^{[3] [11]}.

4. Safety failures alleged at the scene

Several reports and rescue accounts indicate that smoke spread rapidly through Afriland Towers and that emergency exits were affected, contributing to dangerous escape attempts; Afriland management and Lagos fire authorities were reported to be investigating causes and emergency response performance ^{[9] [8]}. Those details substantiate that at this site people faced blocked or compromised egress routes, which helps explain the visible desperation in viral videos; however, the sources do not provide building-by-building architectural inventories, nor do they confirm claims about specific features of UBA House Marina’s design ^{[3] [4]}.

5. Misinformation dynamics and motives

The incident became a vector for rapid misinformation: social posts and viral video clips misattributed the fire to UBA House Marina—likely because a UBA branch is located in Afriland Towers and because UBA House is a recognisable skyline landmark—amplifying panic and reputational risk for the bank ^{[1] [10]}. Media and corporate corrections came quickly, but the persistence of miscaptioned clips shows how emotional imagery accelerates false conclusions before official clarifications can propagate ^{[6] [14]}.

6. Limits of available evidence and unanswered questions

None of the supplied sources verifies the architectural claim that UBA House Marina “has only elevators and no stairs,” and the reporting does not include building plans or official statements about the Marina headquarters’ emergency features, so that specific allegation remains unsupported by the provided evidence (p1_s1–^[1]4). Official investigations into Afriland Towers’ cause, emergency preparedness, and exact casualty figures were ongoing in the cited coverage, and those formal findings will be required to settle questions about negligence, regulatory compliance, and responsibility ^{[8] [11]}.