More than 20 residents of the Nyangassang community in Calabar Municipality have reportedly been electrocuted due to the alleged gross negligence of the Calabar Zonal office of the Port Harcourt Electricity Distribution Company (PHEDC). This serious accusation was made by the community leader, Chief Baron Eyo, during an interaction with journalists.<\/p>\n
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Chief Eyo highlighted ongoing issues with power fluctuations that have led to dangerous situations, including electrocution incidents. He expressed frustration over the complete blackout the community is now enduring, stating:<\/p>\n
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“We started experiencing abnormal voltage around March. Sometimes, it would surge to 280kva instead of the normal 180-220kva, then drop to as low as 80kva in one swoop.”<\/p>\n
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Despite notifying the Zonal Manager of PHEDC, Gabriel, about the issue, promises of immediate action were not fulfilled. The community even mobilized to provide logistical support to expedite repairs, but their efforts were in vain. Eventually, when PHEDC’s maintenance team arrived, they disconnected the community from the national grid entirely, exacerbating the situation.<\/p>\n
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Chief Eyo emphasized the insensitivity of this action, especially as it coincided with the commemoration of a tragedy from seven years ago when over 20 residents suffered electrocution due to PHEDC’s negligence.<\/p>\n
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Youth activist Etim Asuquo added that despite informing PHED about a faulty transformer, no action was taken for months. Instead, PHEDC removed fuses from the substation and disconnected the transformer, citing the community’s inability to fund repairs as the reason for the blackout. Asuquo mentioned that the community had raised funds to assist with repairs, but PHEDC’s headquarters in Port Harcourt was allegedly more focused on revenue generation than maintenance.<\/p>\n
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Attempts to get a response from PHEDV’s Zonal Manager, Gabriel Modupe, led to a referral to the Technical Manager, Tom Udofia, who did not respond to calls or messages.<\/p>\n
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As a result of the prolonged blackout, commercial and economic activities in the Nyangassang community, which is adjacent to the Federal Government Girls College and Margaret Ekpo International Airport, have significantly declined, leaving residents in a state of darkness and despair.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
More than 20 residents of the Nyangassang community in Calabar Municipality have reportedly been electrocuted due to the alleged gross negligence of the Calabar Zonal office of the Port Harcourt Electricity Distribution Company (PHEDC). This serious accusation was made by the community leader, Chief Baron Eyo, during an interaction with journalists. Chief Eyo highlighted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":35073,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35072"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35072\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35074,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35072\/revisions\/35074"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}