By Moses Patience Chat
A man, Alfa Olukuluku Kabiru, was on Thursday electrocuted to death while vandalizing a transformer belonging to the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) at a substation on Camp Road, in the Lokoja area of Kogi State.
The Manager of the power distribution firm, Michael Eneromi, said the firm was contacted after the corpse was found at the substation, adding that the transformer at the station had been the subject of repeated vandalism.
”Just last week, we fixed the transformer following a report by the community after it was vandalized. Yesterday, following another report of vandalism on the same transformer, we sent a letter requesting about N1.9m to fix the transformer,” he said.
Eneromi said the electrocution of the vandal exonerated the firm from insinuations made by people that workers of the firm were behind the vandalism of electricity infrastructure in the state.
He further revealed that he has been working for 20 years as a staff of the National Electric Power Authority (NEPA) in AEDC and that there have never been cases of vandalism by any staff of the Company.
“I want to appeal to members of the public to see electricity infrastructure as their equipment. I call on vigilantes, security agencies, and members of the public to always call the attention of AEDC when they notice unusual movements and ensure that only workers with AEDC identity cards are allowed to carry out maintenance on our facilities.
“As of the time of filing this report, the corpse had been deposited at the mortuary of the Federal Teaching Hospital, Lokoja, by the police and the AEDC officials,” he said.