65-year-old electrocuted in Ondo

A 65-year-old man,  Adeyemi Ogunleye, was, on Saturday morning, electrocuted in Akure, Ondo State during the monthly environmental sanitation exercise.

It was gathered that Ogunleye, who was trying to make illegal connection from an electric pole very close to his house at 10, Oyemekun road, was found lying down on top of the roof of his house holding on a cable.

An eyewitness said the deceased was trying to make an electric connection  from the pole into power his house without the approval of the Benin Electricity Distribution Company .

The eyewitness said: “We woke this morning (Saturday) to see him on top of the roof of the house. I think he was trying to illegally connect a wire from his house to the electric pole in front of the house because there was no light in the area at that time.

“ But in the process of doing this, BEDC supplied power to the area and he died instantly because we saw him holding a naked wire. Before anybody could get to him, he had given up the ghost,” he said.

Men of the Ondo State Fire Service who came to the scene, were said to have turned back and failed to assist the residents of the area in bringing down the corpse from the roof top. Eyewitness account quoted the fire as saying it was not their duty to work on electric poles. Later, the son of the deceased, Tope and other sympathisers, brought down the corpse.

When contacted, the Public Relations Officer of the state police command, Mr. Femi Joseph, confirmed the incident.

“The man was electrocuted when he was making illegal connection to the electric pole in front of his house . But we have started our investigation over the incident,” he said.