The lifeless body of a sexagenarian was on Tuesday found hanging in an uncompleted lift inside the old building of the Edo state high court in Benin, the state capital.
The deceased, Moses Airhiagbonkpa, 65 years who is a father of five, was said to have been in the court for a case relating to a land dispute in Ugiokhuen community, Oredo local government area of Edo state.
The tragedy, which attracted a large number of persons, was described as horrible and worrisome by Mr Osasu Isoken, a relative to the deceased, saying that the renovating project by A&K Construction Company was not being properly handled.
According to him, “I received a call from state police command this morning that my father is dead but when I got here, I was told that they discovered his dead body hanging on uncompleted construction work on a lift on the old building of the high court, when they saw blood gushing out at the first floor in the building they discovered it was a human being hanging dead.
“the company need to be queried on why they failed to indicate a danger sign on the lift under construction that led to the man’s death. What just is as a result of poorly handling of the projects, all they could do was to set a death trap to both workers and visitors who may have case for hearing.”
Isoken appealed to concerned authorities to investigate the matter for justice to be served.
An elder from the community, Johnson Obanor, who was in the company of the elders that went for the court case, narrated to DAILY POST what transpired, saying the deceased left them when they were waiting for the lawyer handling their case, who was going to book a date for the hearing of their case after been earlier be informed that their case was not to be heard today.
“The three of us came here this morning and they told us the court is not for today but when our lawyer came, she now told us to wait, that she was going to take date for the hearing of our case. Even this our brother that is lying dead on the ground was the one that gave the lawyer the money.
“Before our lawyer came back, he took excuse saying he was going to urinate. After we waited for him for some minutes, we started calling him but his phone remained unanswered, when we saw the phone in where we were sitting then we concluded that he may have also been looking for the phone.
“But getting to the last floor, we saw people running around saying that one of the workers fell from the storey building. Getting there, we found out that it was our brother.”
As at the time of filing this report, A&K Construction Company could not be reached as efforts to get their reaction proved abortive.
However, security personnel were seen on ground to ensure peace and decorum while arrangement was underway to take the deceased to the morgue.
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