…Return of Otokoto era?
…Anambra goes tough on hotel owners
…’Big hotels in big cities safer’
For the many guests that have had peaceful night rest at Udoka Golden Point Hotel and Suites, in Oba, Anambra State, it was just luck as some others did not live to tell their gory experiences.
It was also an incredible miracle for those who lodged and slept inside the popular Otokoto Hotel in Owerri in the 1990s, and checked out alive.
By the same token, those who had slept peacefully inside the Hilton Hotels in Ile-Ife, Osun State, and checked out alive never knew they took the greatest risk of their lives.
The recent development in Idemili South Local Government Area of Anambra State could be regarded as a history on playback.
Until the dramatic discovery and demolition of the hotel, popularly known as Udoka Golden Point Hotel and Suites also referred to as ‘La Cruise Hotel by the Anambra State government recently,’ the innocent guests never knew that beyond its not-too-good services and facility offerings, the hotel was a hideout for criminals, and hub for ritual killings.
While masquerading as a legitimate business, it sadly housed horrifying secrets, as over 30 partitioned graves and a shrine were allegedly discovered in the hotel, revealing the gruesome extent of the criminal activities taking place within its walls.
While the recent Oba hotel demolition echoes a troubling precedent in Anambra State’s approach to law enforcement, a decade ago, the Upper-Class Hotel in Onitsha fell victim to similar heavy-handed tactics.
On August 1, 2013, following the alleged discovery of human skulls on the premises of the hotel, government bulldozers reduced the multi-million-naira property to rubbles within hours, though without a court order or further investigation.
But it is not about Anambra hotels, many Nigerians have also been killed by checking into hotels across the country, with their families still searching for them, as ritualists hardly release the unused body parts of their victims.
Recently, Baba Azare, commissioner of Police, Akwa Ibom State, took to the media to lament the increasing cases even in the seemingly peaceful Akwa Ibom, insisting that criminals are hiding in hotels, now more than before, from where they carry out their deadly operations.
There were recent cases involving young graduates who never returned to Port Harcourt from an interview in Abuja and a telecom engineer, who never showed up at the exchange base, with fingers being pointed at the hotels they lodged in Apo, in Abuja and Lokoja, respectively.
In October last year, a girl was rescued in a hotel in Osogbo, Osun State, where she was kept under bondage by a ‘Yahoo Boy’, who was making plans with his collaborators to use the girl for ritual later that night.
Following the seeming spike in the rate of ritual killings in hotels, which are less reported, the country may be witnessing the resurgence of the Otokoto era, where in 1996, Otokoto Hotel in Owerri, Imo State, was used as the base for ritual killings.
Sadly, it was on November 19, 2016,17 years after, that the Otokoto ritual convict was hanged.
In the Akwa Ibom case, as expected, the Commissioner of Police threatened to shut down any hotel found to be a hide out for criminals, but the guests and residents think that the police should rather be proactive with security as there have been cases where calls made from hotels or informants were not answered or response came late, deterring people from giving more information.
Analysing the situation, Henry Omaku, a hospitality expert, said that it would be wrong to lump all hotels in the category of hideouts for criminals.
According to him, there are foreign brands and many big independent hotels in the country that such cases have never been reported.
“You can only hear of ritual killings in mushroom hotels, and people who go there have no reason beyond their cheap rates.
“How many of such cases have you heard in Lagos, Abuja or Port Harcourt because we have more big and better-managed hotels in those major cities,” he said.
Educating the public on hotel categorization, Bukola Amusa, an Abuja-based hotel manager, said that places where ritual killings happen are motels and guest houses as standard hotels have good security and run world best operation models, which make it difficult for such crimes to happen.
“From one-star to five-star hotels are expensive for many guests, especially those on budget, but safety is guaranteed because they are either big local hotels managed by home-groomed experts or foreign brands managed by a mix of local and foreigner hands.
“Again, big hotels pass through a lot of registrations; they have in place CCTV and other security installations that are monitored 24 hours, even from abroad. So, ritualists and criminals cannot thrive in big hotels, but only in face-me-I-face-you motels, which are everywhere,” he said.
Read also: Security: Anambra enforces strict ID checks for tenants, hotel guests
Of course, the signs to be wary of a hotel, according to Omaku, abound.
“The red flag for me, first is when a supposedly hotel does not have a name or signpost outside to direct would-be guests. So, where will you say you are? Such places without names are cover-up and hideouts for criminals,” he warned.
In the case of Udoka Golden Point Hotel, the owner, who was identified as Udoka, denied the allegations, insisting the structure was never used for kidnapping and what was described as “graves” were actually partitioned fish ponds.
Also revealing the red flag, Gracious Emotan, a hotelier in Benin City, noted that all the guesthouses used as prostitutes’ lodges are prime hubs as criminals hide under the pretense of visiting prostitutes to collaborate with them in hiding their arms, charms and money too.
“No responsible man visits brothels; it is even against all cultures and religions in Nigeria. Criminals know and do take advantage of it. Again, no standard hotel in Nigeria gives prostitutes a place because it is unprofessional and a big security risk, especially at this time we are in,” he said.
Emotan also revealed that cheap rates, the location, especially in obscured areas, poor facilities, no food and beverage, just bed for passing the night are signs that something else happens in the guesthouse.
“They are often located in poor neighbourhoods, far away from residential areas, along highways, high fences, cheap and damaged doors and windows. The staff are often very arrogant and reception never picks up calls unless you go there,” he revealed.
However, Timfon John, a deputy superintendent of police and public relations officer, Akwa Ibom State Police Command, noted that crime is not written on the faces of such criminals, they are even the friendliest people, hence, easily lure unsuspecting people to their net.
The Police PRO insisted that caution should be the watchword for everyone.
But the dilemma for Monday Ifedi, a local hotel manager, is that they usually send the mandatory daily reports and names of guests to the respective security agencies, who would act on them, yet are blamed when ritual killings happen.
“We cannot do all the security checks like the big hotels in major cities. The security agencies should help too, though some hotel owners work in collaboration with criminals,” he said.
He noted that with the increasing economic hardship, more people are lured to crime and mushroom hotels are the most vulnerable because of the bulk room booking and money the guests are paying.
“Our owners will tell you to collect the money and give the guests rooms, that after all, it is just one or two nights, except if we don’t want to receive salary at the end of the month.
“So, we are helpless too, even when we know that something fishy is happening,” he decried.
However, many hospitality experts are blaming the alleged increase in crimes in cheap hotels on lack of regulation, security lapses and poor remuneration of hotel workers.
“We have the Nigerian Tourism Development Authority, whose responsibility is to regulate the sector, but it seems to be sleeping. I heard that the National Institute for Hospitality and Tourism is transitioning into a regulatory agency, let’s hope it would bring the needed respite, but the police need to up their game because there are some security lapses you think shouldn’t have happened,” Omaku said.
Also noted is the increasing rate at which hotels are springing up in cities and towns across the country.
“I was passing one street recently in my neighborhood, someone pointed at a 3-storey building and said it was a hotel. He said he knew the young man that owns it, even though he does not know what the person is doing for a living. He said that the owner used to sell meat which he carried about; after sometime, he built the hotel. His source of money was unknown to many people. Such is the case with numerous hotels and motels in Nigeria,” an ICT expert who spoke on condition of anonymity said.
Charles Chilekezi, a professor and social commentator, observed that such criminal activity cannot happen in a licensed hotel.
He said that security is the priority of big and licensed hotels.
“The number one thing about big hotels, like 5-Star Hotels is that they have security, scientific and physical security.”
He said that scientific security is the most important, because it uses wired or wireless electronic system that covers all parts of the hotel, from the gate to all areas of the premises, even in other premises and buildings that surround the same hotel.
“Security is priority for big hotels. They have plain cloth security agents, both the ones officially hired by the hotels and the ones officially planted by the secret service of the country or that territory.”
He however, noted that the type of hotels where they butcher human beings in Nigeria, as well as discuss all kinds of ritualism are not licensed and not well policed.
“Have you heard that somebody was killed in a London Hotel since you were born? Have you heard that somebody was murdered in a hotel in New York? You can’t hear something like that. It can’t happen in Los Angeles; it doesn’t happen in any big city in the world.
“For example, let me take you to the real issue now. Do you realise that there is a Federal Government Agency under the Ministry of Tourism that supervises and licenses hotels? How effective is their monitoring? How do they routinely inspect and investigate all the hotels that are holding their licenses?
“How often do they send inspection teams and under over workers to pry into what those hotels are doing? They don’t do these things; they only collect their toll and various kinds of bribe they take and look the other way
“And that is why people operate brothels; that is why people operate motels.”
To operate a guest house, Chilekezi said that the promoter must pass through a rigid process to be licensed. “You don’t go to sleep in somebody’s house, because he provided you an accommodation. That is wrong, what if you are killed or robbed? What if there is an emergency, fire outbreak, how do we account for people and level of loss and retrievals?
“So, we keep getting everything wrong and that is why you see somebody will build a five-storey building and he says it is a hotel, but it is not registered and every day you see guests coming in and out of the facility. Any place where people lodge and sleep, conduct their businesses, use telephones and other services must go through an outlined procedure to operate.
“We don’t follow these laid down procedures and that is why people are killed. Can you imagine a businessman or professional or scholar, who came to attend a conference, moved into a hotel and he is killed and the people buries him and sprays all manner of chemicals on his body to conceal their evil acts and such things continue to happen without people knowing,” he said.
He also urged Governor Chukwuma Soludo to knockdown all such hotels in Anambra, arrest the owners and the people, who work there and even their close associates, because they will have idea of what is happening in such a place.
“So, Soludo should not only knockdown such hotels, but should also confiscate the land, arrest the directors and workers. It has to be massive, because if you don’t take drastic actions, such things cannot be controlled.
“And for Abia, such things rarely happen in the state, but investigation should start and the Tourism Department in the state should form a security team that will investigate all hotels in the state, look at the calibre of people, who come there, their seriousness and unseriosness and write their reports.
“They should also tell owners of the hotels that they will remain under investigation. Every state in the South-East should go this way.
“Hotel and Tourism is a specialised sector that should not be toiled with. It is important to our economy and we should not allow hoodlums to run it.”
He suggested speedy trial for suspects and those found culpable should be made to face justice.
“Ask me whether people should be killed for this type of heinous crime, I will say yes, because it will serve as deterrent to others, who may want to engage in it.
Things happen, because people and government keep mute about it. Nobody dies in a hotel in civilised places, except there was a fracas or shootout or fire incident during public outings or shows. Underground assassinations in a hotel does not happen in an organised society all over the world.
“Why should we continue to tolerate these kinds of things and continue to think that we don’t have a government in our own country?” he queried
For innocent citizens, who require hotel services, Chilekezi advised that they should go to reputable hotels, not hotels they do not know.
“Don’t also go to any place because it is cheap. To be safe, make enquiries from friends or relatives, who reside in the city to help get you a good hotel to stay in.
Use their guide to get a good place to stay,” he said.
He suggested that every hotel in Nigeria must have CCTV cameras.
Every hotel must be able to provide on request the totality of clips recorded by their CCTV cameras in a week, month as required.
The clips must have dates recorded. These are some of the requirements that those responsible for supervising the hotels have refused to implement, which these hoodlums are taking advantage of to kill innocent people
To stop this abnormality, Darlington Onuoha Kalu, president general, African Association of Small and Medium Enterprise (AASME), suggested that every customer, who comes to lodge in a hotel must present his/her identification card.
He also said that the hotel management must retire all information to local police, which according to him, is part of community policing.
He said that the police can use that to track wanted persons and make the hotels safe and not a hiding place for criminals.
He however lamented that those who are supposed to supervise the hotels are not competent.
“Anybody can open a hotel and function the way he/she wants and because some of these hotels have no security, the criminal elements take advantage of the situation to harm unsuspecting innocent citizens. In some hotels, some staff of the hotel use their names to book rooms for guests, which is wrong.
He also said that the Anambra case was revealed, by the grace of God, because evil cannot reign forever.
“We are not operating hotels as they ought to be. Most hotel operators were not licensed and that is why these things happen in the country. And the government agencies that is supposed to supervise them are incompetent, because they are not good quality accessors,” he said.
He urged states of the South-East to do a directory of all hotels in the states and in the course of that, the hoteliers will obtain operational licenses, which he observed is part of development and will curb insecurity in the states and localities.
“We also need to know operators of hotels. A person with questionable character should not be allowed to run a hotel, because he can use it to perpetrate evil in the society,” he said.
He alleged that some lounges are now safe haven for swindlers (Yahoo Boys), stressing that insecurity in Nigeria is expanding, because people are not talking.
“We need to talk for police to act. And this is the time for entrepreneurs to talk,” he said.
Chilekezi advised the police high command in Abia and Imo, which is under Zone 9, in Umuahia, and the office of the DSS to deploy undercover officers to all the hotels in the zone.
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