Man Electrocuted In Abuja

A man has been electrocuted in Anagada, an Abuja suburb. Residents said the deceased, Yakubu Alhassan, was trying to replace a faulty fuse in the transformer when he was electrocuted. The residents said the deceased known as Yakubu NEPA was a staff of the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) but the company’s Public Relations Officer, Fadipe Oyebode, said the deceased was neither a staff, service provider nor contractor of AEDC.

A resident of the community, Ibrahim Yahaya, said the incident happened last Friday afternoon at about 12:47 pm. “Actually the transformer which supplies electricity to Anagada sometimes trip off whenever there is electricity due to overload and in that process, the fuse pulls out. So the man now decided to go and fix the fuse,” he said. He added, “Anytime the light trips off, he is the one that goes there to fix the fuse on the transformer.”

It was learnt that deceased has been buried according to Islamic rites. Fadipe Oyebode said the location where the 500 KVA transformer was located was fenced with a gate, and that it is always secured, locked and fastened with a padlock. According to him, the deceased gained illegal and unauthorized access to the 500KVA distribution substation for reasons best known to him. “The circumstances surrounding the death are still unknown as several conflicting versions have been obtained – but he appears to have been electrocuted as facts revealed that his undertakers removed him from the substation and hurriedly buried him.

“Also, there is no medical report showing the cause of the deceased death, while the persons who removed the body of the deceased from the scene did not incident the case at the Nigeria Police,” he said. He, therefore, said that investigations were still going on by AEDC and other relevant stakeholders, saying the AEDC has also informed NERC, the industry regulator about the incident.