By Kingston Obung
Calabar
Not less than 60 angry students of the Cross River State University of Technology (CRUTECH) have protested the dead of their colleague, 18-year-old Daniel Asuquo, who was electrocuted Monday night when high tension electricity cables fell on the roof of a residential building at Adak Uko Street in Calabar.
The incident, which also killed a woman whose name could not be established as at press time, completely burnt down a bungalow of 20 rooms, including a patent medicine store and other valuables.
The students took their protest to the Calabar office of Port Harcourt Electricity Distribution Company as well as the governor’s office.
Policemen and security details attached to the governor’s office had blocked the entrance to the sprawling edifice.
At the PHED office, the gates were also locked against them in what a PHED official who pleaded anonymity said was the fear that the students could vent their anger against properties of the firm.
Leader of the protesting students, Prince Harmony, said they called at the governor’s and PHED’s offices to demand an end to incessant death of citizens and students as a result of high tension wire fire incidents in the state capital.
He said Daniel Asuquo was their colleague in the Department of Architecture.
He said: “We are here to protest the constant loss of lives in Calabar due to frequent electrocution through high tension cable falling on homes. In the last one in April, we lost some of our students and now, we have lost an 18-year-old student whose prospects have been cut short.
“We blame the state governor because for a long time, there is no water in the city and when fire fighters were called upon to intervene, they said they had no water. If there was water in the state, perhaps, our colleague would not have died.”
Addressing the angry student, the Special Adviser to the Governor on Students and Youths Mobilisation, Prince Michael Nku, said government was going to assist the family of the victims.
“When the last incident happened in April, the governor gave instruction that all structures under high tensioned wire should be demolished. We don’t want this kind of thing to continue. But I can assure you that the governor, through SEMA, will assist victims of the electrocution,” he said.
