Tragedy on on Wednesday struck in Asaba, the Delta State capital, as a staff of the Benin Electricity Distribution Company got electrocuted on high-tension cable.
The yet-to-be-identified victim climbed the pole at about 8pm along the Nnebisi Road in the capital town, attempting to rectify a damaged electric cable.
An eyewitness said his head wrongly hit a high-tension cable and before he knew what was happening, he was half-baked.
“Before the victim fell from the wooden ladder he was standing on, the life-wire had severed the central part of his head. When he landed on the floor, smokes started oozing out from his body. For close to 15 minutes, nobody could near him,” the source said.
The Eagle Online gathered from sympathizers who immediately besieged the scene that the victim exposed himself to danger by climbing an electric pole without wearing his safety hands gloves.
His body had been deposited at the morgue of the Federal Medical Centre, Asaba.
Meanwhile, protest has rocked the company’s district office in Agbarha-Otor in Ughelli North Local Government Area of the state, where hundreds of women in the community protested hike in their electricity bills.
The protesters threatened to shun the March 28 and April 8 general elections until the outrageous bills are corrected.
While they lamented their community’s contributions to the wealth of this country, they disclosed that several attempts by the community to prevail on the company to make the bills affordable have fallen into deaf ears.
The spokesperson of the women, Queen Egodotaire, surrounded by other women leaders, including, Doris Eda and Omotejohwo Akpomedaye, wondered why the company was insensitive to their plights.
They lamented how the people were being forced to pay despite the epileptic power supply in the community.
Egodotaire said: “Every month, they come up with bloated electricity bills. How they arrive at the figures is still strange to us. And when you don’t pay, they bring ladder to disconnect you and later ask you to pay thousands of naira for reconnection.
“We are one of the oil producing communities hence we are calling on relevant government authorities to wade into our plight because we cannot be made to suffer.”