By Omowumi Omotosho
A manager of a hotel was on Thursday shot and killed by suspected cultists in Olunlade an outskirt of Ilorin, the Kwara state capital.
The victim, Anthony Balogun, managed the hotel owned by his mother. The incident,according to sources, occurred around 8:00 p.m. right in the hotel premises.
Two armed men, sources revealed, had walked quietly into the hotel and asked to see the manager.
Believing they were customers, Balogun reportedly left his room and met them at the reception. The assailants then led him outside and shot him at close range in the chest.
After shooting him, the attackers reportedly used machetes to inflict injuries on his head, hands, and legs.
The deceased’s elder sister, who wished to remain anonymous, recounted her last communication with him: “He called me around 6:30 p.m., and at about 7:00 p.m., he tried to pass on some information. I was in the kitchen, so I asked one of my children to take the call, intending to call him back later.
“When I called him back at 8:00 p.m., his phone was switched off. After several attempts, I received a call from his wife, asking me to come to the Kwara State General Hospital, now Kwara State University Teaching Hospital, Ilorin. It was there that I found his lifeless body, badly mutilated.”
A source at the Ganmo Divisional Police Station described the incident as a possible homicide.
However, when Nationalpilot contacted the Kwara state police spokesperson, DSP Toun Ejire-Adeyemi, she declared that “investigation is still ongoing on the crime.”
