Gunmen kill hotelier in Kwara

Gunmen suspected to be cult members on Thursday night shot dead the manager of a hotel in Ilorin, Kwara state capital.

Sources at the hotel said the gunmen shot the hotel manager at a very close range and thereafter macheted his lifeless body in what many believed was a cult-related attack.

The deceased, whose name was given as Anthony Balogun, was the one running the hotel owned by his mother before the unfortunate incident.

This happened around 8 p.m. on the ill-fated night inside the premises of the hotel located in Olunlade area of the Ilorin metropolis.

Vanguard reliably gathered that gunmen numbering about two had allegedly come into the hotel and requested to see the manager.

The deceased, thinking that they were prospective customers, came out of his room to meet them at the reception.

Then the assailants were said to have called him out of the reception and shot him at close range on the chest, the source said.

They were said to have further macheted him on the head, hands, and legs before they fled the area.

Speaking to our correspondent, the senior sister of the late hotelier, who did not want her name in print, confirmed the incident, saying that she had reported the incident to the police.

According to her, “I called him around 6:30 p.m., and at about 7pm he called me back, wanting to pass a piece of information to me. I told one of the children to pick the call that I would call him back as I was in the kitchen.

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“At about 8 p.m., I returned his call, but the phone had been switched off. I repeated it three times to no avail.

“A few minutes later, the wife called me that I should come to the Kwara State General Hospital, now Kwara State University Teaching Hospital, Ilorin.

“It was at the hospital I met his lifeless body, badly mutilated.”

A source at the Ganmo Divisional Police Station, Ilorin outskirt, where the case was reported, described the incident as a case of possible homicide.

Spokesperson of the state police command, Toun Ejire-Adeyemi, did not confirm the incident, as she failed to respond to messages on her WhatsApp.