By Chidi Nkwopara

OWERRI—Many residents of Owerri, the Imo State capital trooped out, yesterday morning, to get a glimpse of the lifeless body of a suspected vandal entangled on high tension wires.

 transformer

Raising awareness of men’s well-being

It was gathered that the young man was electrocuted as he was about vandalising a transformer on Musa Yar’Adua Drive, New Owerri.

A staff of a hotel close to the scene of the incident, who pleaded for anonymity, said that “nemesis has eventually caught up with the man” (pointing to where his body hung).

According to the hotel staff, vandalisation of public utilities by miscreants has become a regular but sad thing in the state.

“Nobody goes to steal from where he is not conversant with. Nobody also knows, for now (yesterday), the identity of the deceased or how long he carried out his surveillance before striking”, the man said.

Another lady at the scene, who simply identified herself as Oluchi, said: “he sought for quick money and got quick death in return”.

She blamed the Enugu Electricity Distribution Company, EEDC, for not being regular with power supply.

A staff of EEDC, who spoke on strict grounds of anonymity, told Vanguard that “consistent vandalization of our facilities is largely responsible for power outages in some areas and total blackout in others”.

According to the EEDC staff, the vandals move in groups and there was every reason to believe that the lucky ones ran away from the scene, when they saw what happened.

Efforts to reach the Police Public Relations Officer, PPRO, at press time failed, but a police officer attached to the New Owerri Police Division confirmed the incident.