Vandal dies over copper wire theft in Gombe
A man yet to be identified has been electrocuted in labour quarters area of Gombe State.
Eyewitnesses told our correspondent that the man arrived around 3am on Thursday morning with suspected gang who dropped him off at the point of his death before proceeding to another destination.
According to Zakari John, a resident of the area, this incident is the fourth time criminals are making attempt at stealing copper wire from the area, noting that it is the first time a life is lost.
Periscope Nigeria reports that the quest for copper wire due to its high return has made alot of communities to run current installations with aluminum which is less lucrative and some others using under ground connection.
John revealed that three attempts were successful as the criminals moved Jos Electricity Distribution Company installations, leaving the community in darkness for over a week.
He stated that Labour quarters suffered in darkness until individual contributions geared towards replacing the stolen items saved the community.
He said, “This is the fourth time now, the last three times they were successful and it cost us days in darkness. Luck suddenly ran out of this one who had climbed and started vandalising.
“We noticed when the power tripped off in a way that we considered unusual and we heard that vehicle carrying others dropped him and he began to operate. When criminals come they go for copper wire, what the company did was to change from copper to aluminum which is less attractive. He has started cutting the cable but didn’t know of a dangling live cable that touched his head and roasted him.”
John appealed to JEDC to illuminate the transformer areas to enable residents identify vandals, adding that closer ties between the community and the company would solve the problem of theft.
“We want to have an idea of who comes to the transformer point. There should be synergy between the community and JEDC, each of the transformer point should have light.
“When the initial one was stolen and after we contributed to replace the items, with power still on after appealing to the distribution community to switch off for the time of our activities.
“This explains the failure of close ties with their officials and the community. We took the risk to do the work after they failed to hear our plea,” John added.
When contacted the Head of Communications Jos Electricity Distribution Company Dr. Friday Elijah, urged residents to keep vigil around their various installations.
Elijah said, “We urge them to keep vigil on electricity installations in their domain, let them help us by constantly monitoring our transformers.
“It is our primary responsibility to safeguard these assets but some of the people when they come we are not on ground, what we want them to do is to help us. Once the transformers are vandalised, sometimes it takes us few days, or weeks to get it repaired and the community will be in the dark.”
He noted that efforts were on to install solar lights around installations to ward off vandals.
“We have commenced that there are transformers where solar lights have been installed to work at night and it is company’s policy and we are working on that. But because of the volume of transformers all of them will not be done simultaneously. We have started with areas that are prone to such activities,” he added.
