A suspected vandal of the Benin Electricity Distribution Company (BEDC) installations has been apprehended and handed over to police operatives in Ikere, Ekiti State.
The suspect (names withheld);was said to have been nabbed while reportedly stealing a 150mm2 aluminum conductors in Ikere.
This was contained in a statement in Benin by the Head, Branding and Corporate Communications of BEDC, Mrs Evelyn Gbiwen.
Gbiwen, who described the reported vandalism of BEDC installations as disturbing, noted that the suspect had been transferred to the Ekiti State Rapid Response Squad (RRS) in Ado Ekiti.
She explained that the incident was part of a larger trend of vandalism in the region, adding that just recently, 27 spans (100 meters) of aluminum conductors were stolen from the Ikere-Ise 33KV network, resulting in significant losses for BEDC.
“The company had to replace the damaged conductors using recovered materials from an old NIPP network and stored accessories,” he said.
According to her, BEDC will continue to collaborate with law enforcement agencies to protect its assets and maintain service reliability.
She disclosed that investigation was still ongoing and assured customers that the apprehended vandal would be penalised appropriately.
Continuing, the company spokesperson quoted the Ekiti Regional Head of BEDC, Mrs Moyosola Akin-Afuye as saying that vandalism of electrical materials in the region was becoming alarming.
“This is despite several enlightenment programmes to inform perpetrators to desist from such act, as it throwed customers into long and very disturbing power outages affecting businesses and homes.
“The vandals usually cart away equipments like electrical cables, transformer oil and aluminum conductors.
“Over the past 10 months, many substations in the region have been repeatedly targeted. Two vandals were apprehended and jail in the early part of this year.”.(NAN)
