The Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps, Akwa Ibom State Command, has arrested a 23-year old Ndifreke Jumbo for obstructing technicians of Port Harcourt Electricity Company from carrying out their work.
Jumbo, upon discovering that the company’s technicians had gone to his house to disconnect him, rushed to PHED office and paid a bill of one month out of the six months he was said to have owed the power company.
The state commandant of the NSCDC, Mr. Pedro Ideba, told our correspondent in Uyo on Thursday that Jumbo, together with his friends, seized the ladder from the technicians of the company and began to hurl bottles, stones, sticks, and some other dangerous weapons at them.
According to Ideba, the power company insisted on disconnecting Jumbo as the one month bill which Jumbo had settled was too small out of a debt of six months he was owing the company.
He stated that one of the PHED’s employees, Mr. Solomon Emmanuel, was injured in the attack.
However, Jumbo, who spoke with our correspondent, stated that he went to PHED office to pay the electricity bill he owed them.
He stated that upon paying them the amount he owed, they still went ahead and disconnected him.
“I came back from the PHED’s office where I went to pay my bill, all of a sudden, the technicians that had disconnected me, began to drag me.
“One of them, Emmanuel, stabbed me. I fell to the ground and fainted. This is all I could remember,” he said.
Emmanuel on his part stated that he used pliers to hit Jumbo on his cheek when he noticed that he (Jumbo) and the attacking youths did not want him and some of his other colleagues go.
He said, “Emmanuel owed the company for six months and only went to the office to pay for one month. So we were given the order by the company to disconnect him.”