How Hilton hotel orchestrated OAU student’s ‘ritual’ murder; power, wealth, tradition to clash with justice

Hilton Hotel, Ife, is the most unlikely of places any lodger should feel insecure. It caters to educated clients: students, lecturers, and others in the town bubbling with campuses, including OAU, the Polytechnic Ile Ife and the Oduduwa University, both of which the hotel owners Rahmon Adedoyin has in its kitty.

But something was in the offing Nov. 5 Timothy Oludare Adegoke crashed in there. The accountant, from Abuja, was a master’s degree student writing his exam at OAU, and had been a regular at Hilton. He lodged there the last time he came.

But the father of three had no idea. He called his wife, and, simply, told her he just checked in.

The following day, she buzzed throught out the morning. His phone rang out, but he never took the calls. The wife, according to a family source, kept calling throughout the day.

Whatever fate had for him, it came the very night he checked in, shortly after he paid in N37,000 for the three days he would spend.

Frustrated, the wife had to inform her in-laws at Igbo-Ora, Oyo. They went to the OAU, and confirmed Adegoke was elsewhere— never in the exam hall.

The OAU management promptly widened the reach. They reported to the police, informed the hotelier association in Ife to help check their lodgers for Adegoke.

Out of curiosity, the wife dug out the last hotel receipt her husband brought home. It was Hilton.

And she remembered he told her it was always Hilton.

But Hilton’s receptionist, Adedeji Tobilola,  a lady, kept denying Adegoke checked in to the hotel.

Meanwhile, the police had begun investigation. And some things had unravelled: Adegoke transferred the lodging rate to a private account, not a corporate one; his mobile, tracked, had left ife for Ejigbo on Nov. 6.

The police then traced the account owner to Ife—then to Hilton. It was the receptionist. And that was the breakthrough.

She confessed Adegoke was murdered right there at Hilton. She named others, too: Chairman Adedoyin, Manager 4, an alfa who lived at Ejigbo, and four others.

They led the police to the spot where Adegoke was buried in a bush around the hotel  premises. The Osun deputy police commissioner supervised the exhumation.

“His body was wrapped with hotel blanket and bed sheet and buried at the upper side of the hotel in Ife (contrary to earlier report that he was found around Ejigbo), the Dustbin arena and reliable sources said that spot has been the burial ground for various victims,” a family source stated.

The remains is now at the UNIOSUNTeaching Hospital for examination. An unprovoked murder of a hotel lodger could only be nailed down to ritual killing, many already concluded.

The state police command promised there will be no respecter of person.

Well, Adedoyin is a man of respect. He is the foremost industrialist in the ancient town, boasting two tertiary institutions, with satellites in Lagos, a hotel, and a water factory.

He is the Maye of Ile Ife too.

So law, justice, power, wealth, and tradition are about to clash.