By Adekunle Adekoya

IT was evening, about a few minutes to eight o’clock last Friday. In the Ikotun-Egbe area of Lagos, towards Ikotun roundabout, traffic had slowed to a standstill, as is usual in that very busy suburb of Lagos. I was in transit, on my way to Igando, another busy suburb further ahead of Ikotun. It was from the Bolorunpelu area of Egbe that traffic had grounded to a halt.

Looking out the vehicle’s window, I saw that I was right by the Synagogue Church of All Nations, which is also domiciled in this area.

While waiting for the traffic to resume crawling, suddenly there were blinding flashes of lightening-white light, accompanied by cracking sounds. Craning my neck out the vehicle’s window, I saw that cables that streamed overhead from a nearby power transformer were glowing red, emitting white, lightening flashes. To make matters worse, it was happening at a bus stop. This occurrence, as familiar with it as we are in this part of the world, sent scores of people waiting at the bus stop scampering for safety.

At the end of the fireworks show, the red glow from the overheated power cables faded away, and in its wake, left a dangling power cable which had been severed from its connection during the fireworks display. Inevitably, the area hitherto lit up with public power, was thrown into darkness instantly. That again, we are used to. Happily, apart from the power outage, nobody was injured, as much as I could ascertain from that brief incident.

What we do not want to get used to is the occurrence of people getting electrocuted after fireworks from overhead power cables. I recall a similar incident at Cele Bus Stop on the Apapa-Oshodi Expressway several years ago. It was morning. On the other side of the road, in the Oshodi direction, a cobbler had a makeshift stand under one of the high-tension towers whose cables criss-crossed the Cele Bus Stop area.

Suddenly, there was a spark on the tower under which the cobbler sat, waiting for customers. At the end of the spark, the cable, which had been severed during the spark, dropped on the cobbler, and in an instant, the fellow, a light skinned person, blackened immediately, and was rendered lifeless. I stood there, rooted to the spot, for several minutes, and later made my way to my workplace. The following day, I observed on getting to Cele Bus Stop that another trader had taken the place of the cobbler that died. Even now, more people are there, perhaps oblivious of the risk.

In many of our residential areas, especially in the suburbs, PHCN’s cables, many of them live, dangle from the electric poles, and people, to warn others of the danger, use damaged furniture or discarded tyres to warn people, while it takes forever for PHCN workmen to come and fix the damned things.

I therefore call on the Urban Furniture Regulatory Unit, URFU to include the power companies among those whose installations it must regulate. There is much carelessness in the handling of electric power installations in this country, such that it is commonplace to see units of a transformer glowing red hot as you walked or drove past, and at the same time, beside such a lethal installation, see traders comfortably selling their wares, with their children playing around, completely impervious to the danger next to them.

Other countries, especially those that have uninterrupted power supply do not fly cables overhead carelessly the way we do, or leave transformers and feeder pillars exposed as we have them. Let there be action to show that we are in the 21st century.