By Abimbola Ogunnaike
A father of two, simply identified as Amas, reportedly lost his life on Friday on a high-tension pole after being electrocuted in Ekeki Police Station, Azikoro Road, in Yenagoa, the Bayelsa State capital.
Amas, a non-staff of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria, PHCN, who lives in the neighbourhood was on the pole to connect clients to the federal line before the incident which took his life occurred.
It was gathered that due to the poor power supply in the state, the preferred and stable line remains the federal line with assurance of 12-13 hrs power daily.
The deceased, who hails from Nembe Local Government Area of the state, was said to have been stuck on the pole for hours before officials of the PHCN came to his rescue.
According to an eyewitness, who gave his identity as Micheal Orubo, “Amas lives on our street, and most of the connection work in this area he attends to them, why has death come to him in such a way? He just left us where we were playing a chess game, and said he was coming back but never returned”
He was easygoing, who will care for the two kids he has left behind. The money he gets from these electric connections is what he manages to feed his family with. What manner of death is this, someone we were with throughout this period of rain, so he left to fix the connection immediately after the rain.
Another eyewitness said, “He just passed me not more than five minutes, immediately after the rain stopped. The next thing I heard was people screaming, we rushed to the scene of the incident but we couldn’t help it, because he was wearing a belt so it held him tight to the pole, there was nothing the people could do because we were all scared and it was still raining”
It took hours before PHCN people came and brought the lifeless body down from the pole. The mother has a shop close to where the incident happened, and when she heard about it, she hadn’t been herself since, she couldn’t even come out to see the body. People are consoling her now, very sad to know that he is dead.
