My daughter’s death robbed my family of a potential biochemist, says father of electrocuted 14-year-old

 

                         Deborah

Fourteen-year-old Deborah Faleke was a talented and brilliant child. She had dreams of becoming a biochemist when she grew up. And she worked towards her dream, with her writing the final paper in the 2016/2017 West African School Certificate Examinations recently, taking her a few steps away from entering the university to commence a course in Biochemistry.

But that dream was cut short on Saturday May 21, 2016, when Deborah was killed by a high voltage wire.

According to her father, Pastor Ademola Faleke, Deborah’s death killed his daughter’s dream of achieving her ambition.

”Deborah was a very brilliant child. As a little girl, she told me that she would like to study Biochemistry at Covenant University, Ota, Ogun State, and after she finishes her secondary education. She finished her WASCE examination only three weeks ago but her death has robbed my family of having a Biochemist,” Deborah’s father said with tears in his eyes.

Pastor Faleke, the General Overseer of Mountain of the Word and Miracle Ministry (a.k.a Hill of Bashan), was on pastoral duty in Egbeda, Lagos, when he received a call that he should take the next available bus back home.

On getting home, he was told that his beautiful daughter, Princess Adebobola Faleke, had been electrocuted by a 150mm electric wire which cut and fell on her few minutes after Ikeja Distribution Company Ltd restored power.

Deborah, the last child of five children, was said to have stepped out of her parent’s residence at N0 50, Fagbenro Street, Alakuko, Lagos residence when the unfortunate incident happened.

Expatiating further on the incident, Pastor Adeleke said: ” The incident occurred on Saturday. That particular morning, I was at Egbeda for ministration at around 10:00am. They called me that there was fire, and I was even thinking that it was fire from gas. Later, they called me that it was electricity cable.

“I learnt that there was power surge few minutes after power was restored and there was fire. The fire consumed the pole, and unfortunately, at that particular time, she was about leaving the house for a mission when the cable dropped on her. At first, when the incident occurred, people were scared of getting close to her because of the fear of being electrocuted.

“But later they took her when people saw that they were safe. The first hospital could not take her because they have no facility to take such incident. So, she was referred to a bigger hospital. At that moment, she was still alive because she was still gasping. But she was not taken into the hospital. They tested her in that commercial tricycle popularly called Keke NAPEP that brought her to the hospital.

“When the doctor saw that she was gasping for breath, he said they cannot take her. After some few minutes, she gave up the ghost. When I got there, I found my daughter lifeless still lying in that Keke NAPEP.

“There was a man that appeared to be an Ikeja Distribution Company official he took the picture of the pole, wires and also took the picture of the corpse. The police also came to take pictures. The police was even saying that we should not even bury her yet, that they have to carry out a post-mortem. I told them I have her death certificate and that the cause of the death has been ascertained. She is a young girl who just finished her WAEC examination three weeks ago.”

Pastor Adeleke commended the efforts of the police, which he said was fantastic. “The police at Alakuko Division are very fantastic. I commend the Divisional Crime Officer (DCO) and all the police officers there. Immediately the case was reported, they swung into action. I would like to say this, there are some preventive measures we can take to avoid unnecessary killings of innocent citizens. Take for instance, wherever there is high cable or high tension wire, there should be a net protecting the wire so that whenever the wire falls, it won’t fall on anybody.”

The authorities of the Ikeja Distribution Company were also at the residence of the Adelekes to commiserate with them.

“The Ikeja Disco people came here on Thursday. They came in with the distribution manager of Abule Egba, the legal officer and some engineers to commiserate with us. My brother, who is a lawyer, met with the legal officer of Ikeja Disco and fixed a date for meeting” Faleke added.