Residents of Ebi’s Mechanic Road in the Amarata area of Yenagoa Local Government Area, Bayelsa State, were plunged into mourning on Tuesday after the decomposing bodies of seven friends were discovered in a music studio apartment.
The tragic incident is believed to have been caused by generator fumes in the studio, owned by one of the deceased, Akpos Barakubo. The friends had decided to rest in the apartment after a studio session.
Six bodies were discovered dead in the morning, while one person, found unconscious and rushed to the hospital, later died.
According to residents, the group had been working into the night using a generator due to poor power supply in the state and likely fell asleep without turning off the generator.
Most of the deceased were undergraduate students from Niger Delta University (NDU) who used the recording business to support their education.
Resident Mr. Damion Asamonye blamed the state and federal governments, as well as the power distribution company, for the tragedy. He stated that if there had been adequate power supply, there wouldn’t have been a need for a generator at night. He criticized the Port Harcourt Electricity Distribution Company (PHED) for providing power only when distributing bills.
“Both the federal and state governments have failed us. If there was a public power supply, maybe these people wouldn’t have lost their lives in these circumstances,” he said. “Seven able-bodied young men just died like that because of the failure of government. The most annoying thing is that tomorrow, the PHED personnel will come with a ladder to disconnect light that they are not supplying. How can people be spending their money on fueling generators despite the current hardship in Nigeria, even after paying for light bills?”
Another resident, Mrs. Joy Reuben, said the neighborhood woke up on Tuesday morning to the tragic incident and called on the government to ensure adequate power supply to prevent such tragedies in the future.
Bayelsa State police spokesman ASP Musa Muhammed promised to provide more details but did not respond to further calls. As of the time of this report, security operatives had cordoned off the area and the corpses had been evacuated to the mortuary.
