MYSTERY DEATH IN IFE HOTEL: How bank statement, phone exposed suspects
Timothy Adegoke Oludare’s death in Ife Hotel remains a mystery that is gradually unravelling following new revelations by police.
Anthony Iwuoma
Those indicted over the death of Mr. Adegoke Timothy Oludare did not read James Hadley Chase. If they did, they would have known that there is ‘no perfect crime’. Criminals are known to be meticulous in their plans, making sure they tie all loose ends to make sure nothing is left to chance. Well, knowing ‘the way the cookie crumbles’, it is certainly a little bit of oversight that always sends the house crashing on their heads, as in this case where Oludare’s recovered body, phone set and bank account statement were instrumental in busting the crime.
Adegoke Oludare was a Master of Business Administration (MBA) student (the long-distance programme) at the Obafemi Awolowo University, OAU, Ife, Osun State. He had left Abuja on Friday, November 5, 2021, preparatory for his examinations over the next two days, on Saturday and Sunday. He lodged at Hilton Honour Hotel at Ile-Ife, paid N37,000 for the two nights and was assigned to room 305. From that moment, what happened next was macabre and shrouded in mystery, which homicide detectives are still battling to unravel.
The hotel is owned by a prince of Ife, Rahmon Adegoke Adedoyin, who had contested the Ooni throne with the current Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi. He is also the owner of Oduduwa University.
Oludare, a father of three was reported missing after his wife could no longer reach him on phone the next day. That was after he had informed her of his safe arrival in Ife. Inquiries at OAU also showed that he did not show up for the exam either. His relations reported his disappearance to the police, resulting in the opening of a putrid can of worms.
After Oludare was declared missing and the Anti-kidnapping Squad of the Osun Police Command, Osogbo, went to the hotel to make inquiries with his family members, the hotel workers denied knowing or seeing him. However, the police eventually arrested six staff of the hotel who later confessed that Oludare had lodged at the hotel. Strangely, documents had been allegedly doctored as regards his stay in the hotel.
The mystery of Oludare’s disappearance started unveiling after money paid by Oludare for lodging was traced to Adesola, on the same Friday, November 5, 2021, that Adegoke Oludare’s wife claimed that her husband reported having lodged at a hotel in Ile Ife. Adesola was arrested and taken to the police headquarters, Osogbo, and she confessed to allocating the room to Oludare on the same Friday.
Her confession led to the arrests of five other suspects, including the hotel’s maintenance officer, simply identified as Qasim. Also arrested was the hotel manager, Adeniyi Aderogba. One of the arrested hotel workers was found to have taken the deceased’s phone to Ejigbo. Police tracking had shown that Oludare’s phone had been moved from Ile-Ife to Ejigbo between November 5 and 6.
The owner of the hotel, Prince Adedoyin is also being held by the police. Adedoyin had told Oludare’s relations when they came searching for him, that the student did not lodge in the hotel and there was no record of him having paid into the hotel’s bank account.
Oludare’s death puzzles
There are many twists and turns in the narratives concerning the shocking death of the student, including allegations that he might have been a victim of ritual murder.
But the Osun State Police Public Relations Officer, Yemisi Opalola, denied that none of the suspects had confessed that Oludare was killed for ritual.
While there is much to wonder about the case, it is left for the police to sort out the riddle of the culpability of the suspects.
The student’s death appeared like a jigsaw. A source told The Nigerian Xpress that the police were trying to unravel fraudulent acts by hotel workers alongside the mysterious death of the hotel lodger.
The source explained that when Oludare wanted to book into the hotel, the receptionist, Adesola, made him pay into her account instead of the hotel account because they had the intention of sharing the money.
“Another receptionist took over duty from Adesola the morning after Oludare lodged in the hotel and she was briefed about the guests in the hotel. It was the new receptionist who later discovered that the guest in room 305 had died.
“She informed the maintenance officer, Qasim who also alerted the hotel manager, Aderogba.
“Because Oludare was lodged into the hotel fraudulently, they then conspired to dispose of his body and personal belongings. One of the workers also took the deceased’s phone to Ejigbo as a decoy, to make it look as if the student was a victim of kidnapping.
“The information the workers gave the owner of the hotel, Adedoyin was what made him tell the student’s family when they came searching that he didn’t lodge at the hotel”.
The source added that “the police are working to unravel whether the student was killed during his stay in the hotel or he died naturally.”
Another death in hotel room
Meanwhile, Oludare’s tragic end has the trappings of a similar shocking hotel death that occurred almost three years ago involving a female lawyer. The incidents bear lessons for hoteliers, all persons who have cause to lodge in hotel rooms and government agencies regulating hotel facilities.
Just like Oludare who left his workplace in Abuja for Ife to write an examination, 41-year-old mother of two, Mrs Feyisayo Obot, a lawyer who worked with Save the Children, an NGO, as national administrative manager had flown into Lagos from Abuja to seat for a professional project management examination on January 23, 2019.
Unlike Oludare who checked into Hilton Honour Hotel, Ile Ife himself, Obot had got the Lagos Office of her organisation to make the hotel reservation for her.
She was lodged into Citiheights Hotel on Sheraton Link Road, Opebi, Lagos, which the organisation used regularly.
The mother of two had written the examination she journeyed to Lagos for only to end up being stabbed to death inside her hotel room on January 26, 2019. She was murdered the day she was to leave the hotel.
In an interview with The Nigerian Xpress after the incident, Mr. Anderson Obot had described his wife as a straightforward person who would never give in to any attempt to defraud or do any harm. He alleged that his wife might have been murdered by someone who felt threatened by her upright nature.
While the family suspected a hired killing, police investigation pointed to a robbery which ended tragically.
The police found Obot to have been murdered by another guest in the hotel, identified as Joshua Usulor.
Usulor, then aged 21, had planned the crime for about a week.
A police source told The Nigerian Xpress that, “A CCTV footage that was given to the police showed that the suspect had earlier lodged in the hotel on January 15, 2019. He had used the name Adebayo Adedeji to check in then. On his second visit, he checked in with the name Joshua Usulor.”
The Nigerian Xpress also gathered that Usulor worked as a chef with a restaurant on Victoria Island.
He earned N60,000 as his monthly take home, and had been on leave without pay since January due to renovation work going on at the restaurant.
In his confessional statement, Usulor had said that he paid N45,000 for two nights at the hotel.
Narrating how he killed Obot, he said, “I met the lady on January 23, 2019, at the hotel lobby. We spoke briefly and parted ways. I met her the second day being January 24, 2019, and we spoke at length and exchanged contact. She told me her room number was room 501. I promised to visit her in my free time and she accepted.
“On January 26, 2019, I went to her room, knocked on the door and she asked who was that and I told her it was me. She opened her door and I entered. We started chatting and she told me her sink was bad. I offered to fix it. When I checked, I discovered it was blocked so I helped her fix it.
“After fixing it, she went in to see if it was okay. At that point, I went to her table and picked the N26,000 on it. She saw me and asked why I picked the money, I told her not to question me but she was raising her voice. I immediately picked a knife on her table and stabbed her in the stomach. I also slit her throat.
“When I noticed she had stopped breathing, I took her two phones and hurried out of the room. I went to my room quickly packed my things and checked out of the hotel.
“I was owing the hotel over N40,000 and I had to pay them part of it with the N26,000 I got from Obot. Because that was not my first time there, I told them I will balance up some other time. They requested I drop something as collateral. I gave them the two phones I had collected from Obot. The agreement was that when I pay, I will collect the phones, so I left.”
The lawyer’s death became known after family members who had been trying to reach her could not get across to her on phone almost all day.
Sensing danger, the family had contacted a relative in Lagos who went to the hotel to find out if she was okay. It was when the hotel staff and the family member got to the room that they found her in the pool of her own blood.
Meanwhile, Usulor had destroyed his SIM card and bought a new line to avoid being tracked through his phone number.
He, however, met his Waterloo when detectives from the State Criminal Investigations and Intelligence Department (SCIID) trailed him to his hideout in Victoria Island.
Usulor spoke about how he got nabbed: “I met one Mrs Ifeoma via social media and she claimed to work at Intercontinental Hotel. I told her I was looking for a better job as a chef. She promised to help me once any opportunity comes up.
“She called me recently and told me to come to Intercontinental Hotel for a job opening, which I did. While I was sitting there, a police team came and said I was under arrest for murder. I did not argue with them because I know I did it.”
Asked who hired him to do the hit job, the suspect said, “Nobody sent me to kill the woman. I just killed her myself.”
A judicial curtain was drawn on the crime on September 21, this year when an Ikeja Special Offences Court sentenced, Usulor, now 23, to 28 years imprisonment for killing Mrs Feyisayo Obot.
Justice Oluwatoyin Taiwo jailed Usulor after he approached the Lagos State Directorate of Public Prosecution (DPP) for a plea bargain agreement in which he would plead guilty to the crime.
The DPP had in the agreement approved a term of 21 years’ imprisonment which would begin from the date of Usulor’s remand.
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However, during the proceedings, Justice Taiwo rejected the proposed prison term, saying that it was too lenient.
The judge said she would exercise the power conferred on her by Section 75 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Law to increase the prison term to 30 years.
She eventually reduced Usulor’s prison sentence to 28 years following a plea for leniency by his counsel, Mr Spurgeon Ataene who pleaded that Usulor was remorseful.
While sentencing Usulor, Taiwo asked why he killed the lawyer.
He responded: It was a mistake, I didn’t know what got into me”.
Meanwhile, the nation waits with bated breath to see how Oludare Adegoke’s mystery death would unravel and the culprits served appropriate punishment
