High tension cable kills nine-year-old in Ebonyi

Ozioma Ubabukoh 

Power Pole

A high tension cable supplying electricity to Echara Community in Ezza South Local Government Area of Ebonyi State has killed a nine-year-old boy, Chinedu Nwangwu, The PUNCH learnt on Wednesday.

He was electrocuted last Saturday when he tried to pluck fruits from a cashew tree within his school premises in the area.

According to his relatives, Nwangwu, a pupil of Echara Community Primary School in Ezza South LGA, climbed a cashew tree without knowing that one of the branches of the tree was resting on a high tension cable that supplied electricity to the community.

They said he has since been buried.

Wailing, mother of the deceased, Mrs. Nwangwu, attributed the incident to the activities of spiritual forces, saying that one of her sons had recently died in similar circumstances.

She said, “I should blame my God for allowing me to live in the land of the living without my son. It is not up to three years I lost one of my boys to motor accident and today again, it is another calamity. Wouldn’t it be better if I cease to live as life is becoming useless without my children.”

However, one of the teachers at Echara Community Primary School blamed the misfortune that befell the victim to lack of proper home training.

Declining to give her name, the teacher added, “If the boy was well tutored by his parents he wouldn’t have climbed the cashew tree in the first place.”

According to her, the school authority had earlier directed the pupils not to climb trees or pluck fruits in the school
without the consent of the school authority.