AS the Federal Government continues with its efforts to improve power supply in the country, so has the number of Nigerians who met with cruel and untimely death while looking for means to achieve alternative power supply continued to increase.One family that has recently swollen the unenviable number of the victims of generator fume poisoning is that of Peter Nwoye in Nkwere-Ezunzka, Oyi Local Government, Anambra State. The late Peter Nwoye in his late 40s, was until his death, an activist who constantly opposed the indiscriminate sale of the community land by a group of people without commensurate development in the community.When the Nigerian Tribune visited Nkwere Ezunzka, residents were yet to come to terms with the circumstances that led to the death of members of the promising family.One of them, a young man, who claimed to be the electrician that did the wiring of the electrical system in the building of the late Nwoye, argued that the deceased and his family members had been using generator for over five years and wondered how they could have locked up a 38KVA generator in the passage to their sitting room and went to bed only for the generator to go off after the fuel was exhausted.The source disclosed that when the police came and forced the door open, the late Peter Nwoye and his wife, Ebele, were found naked in the room with the husband lying on the bed and the wife sitting on a bench by the bed cold dead.He said that the eldest child, Daluchukwu, a 13-year-old JSS 1 student and her sister, Chioma, who was 10 years old struggled with death vomitting and defecating before they finally gave up the ghost.Another source and a close friend of the family said that he was yet to believe that the late Nwoye could be careless to the extent of sleeping with a generator in his house, stating that, he was well enlightened and knew the dangers of being exposed to generator fume.In another quarter in the community, some natives, who pleaded for anonymity, called for proper investigation into the circumstances surrounding the death of the Nwoye family, describing their demise as unusual.'We may not be able to prove it scientifically or logically but we have this instinct that there is more to their death than meets the eye. We want a thorough investigation that is all we owe them. It at the end of the day, it is established that there was no foul play then, they might have died of recklessness,' a member ofthe community said.Another aggrieved youth who said he was with the late Nwoye the night before the incident, blamed constant power failure in the community for the unfortunate incident, positing that every month they paid exhorbitant bills to the officials of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) without regular power supply. He submitted that if there was power supply, the family would not have slept with the generator running.However, he dismissed any foul play in their death, saying that, it was possible that they had slept off without remembering to turn off the generator.The Police Public Rations Officer, Emeka Chukwuemeka, confirmed the incident and said that the family of four died as a result of generator fume they inhaled while asleep. But he said that police had taken custody of the generator and the vomits from the deceased for further investigations.
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