New Telegraph

LG boss escapes death as youths abduct BEDC officials

Irate youths in Mosogar Community in Ethiope West Local Government Area in Delta State yesterday attacked the Council Chairman, Hon. Oghenedoro Owoso, over what they described as persistent blackout in the community. The youths were alleged to have made away with two rifles, injured a policeman and an aide to the chairman during the attack. The youths, who were protesting eight years of blackout in the area, were also reported to have abducted two officials of the Benin Electricity Distribution Company (BEDC) for hours before security men who stormed their hideout set free the officials of the electricity company.

The Mosogar community was said to have been without electricity supply for the past eight years, a development that led to protest by the community in November, last year, during which thousands of the residents gathered on the Benin-Warri Highway, and again last month, barricading the major highway for several hours.

Trouble was said to have started after some of the youths, who were alleged to have been fed up with the endless promise from the community leaders to restore electricity to the community but failed, abducted two BEDC officials who were on patrol. A resident who witnessed the protests, incident told journalists that “after the officials were abducted, they tried to force them to restore the light, but the police was informed, and the Mosogar Divisional Police Officer (DPO), called the Chairman of the council, who in turn drove to the scene to pacify the youths, and that was when he was attacked.” One of Owoso’s aides, who craved anonymity, also recalled that the youths attacked his boss and disarmed one of the policemen attached to him, and in the process one of the chairman’s aides was shot and the mobile policeman on his security details was injured. “Another aide to the Chairman and a mobile policeman was abducted and taken away to a shrine close to the river and they were about to take them with a boat through the river when security men came to rescue them,” he noted.

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