A middle-aged man died after being electrocuted while trying to steal wires and equipment from a transformer.
The incident happened near Queens Hotel in Makurdi, Benue State, early Tuesday morning. Neighbors found the man’s body hanging between two poles.
A resident named Terkula said the man took advantage of power outages to do this. He probably got shocked when the power came back on unexpectedly.
“We woke up at 5 am and saw that the power was back in some places. Some neighbors went to check the transformer,” Terkula said.
“When we got there, we saw that all the wires and other things were gone, and the man was dead. We called the police, and they took his body away.”
Dr. Adakole Elijah from the Jos Electricity Distribution Company (JED) confirmed the incident. He said vandals are causing a lot of problems for JED.
“It’s hard for us to protect our equipment by ourselves. We need help from the communities,” Elijah said. “Every time we fix the damage, vandals break it again. These things are important for the communities, but they’re also ours. Vandalism is dangerous and bad for everyone. We ask people to help protect these things.”
The police also confirmed the incident. “I am aware that someone was electrocuted in Wadata while attempting to vandalise a transformer. I received a report about that,” said the police spokesperson, SP Catherine Anene.
