Robbers raid hotel, cart away N5m

By Adeolu Adeyemo - 25.01.2008

armed robbers on Wednesday night attacked lodgers at the Pastoral Institute (PI) Hotel in Ibadan and shot a middle aged man, carting away about N5 million, stealing two cars and other valuable items.

Also beaten in the hotel were the members of the Catholic Church and two journalists from Vanguard and Punch newspapers, Ola Ajayi and Sunday Aborisade respectively, who were at the premises of the hotel.

The men, who reportedly arrived the hotel around 9.00 p.m, came in Peugeot 306 and a Jeep and robbed all the occupants of the rooms in the hotel of their belongings.

The robbery, which lasted several hours, saw three workers of an Abuja-based non-governmental organisation, Alliance for Africa, robbed of N100,000, their handsets, bags and some other documents.

Nigerian Tribune’s investigations in the hotel on Thursday revealed that the robbers acted on a tip-off that a lodger was having about N2.2 million on him at the hotel.

IT was also learnt that thousands of naira were carted away from the management of the hotel and other lodgers. Speaking on the incident, Mr. Ola Ajayi, one of the victims, told journalists in Ibadan that the robbers were 11, adding that they were all asked to cooperate with them or be killed.

At the premises of the hotel, however, the mangement of the hotel declined comments, but one of the workers, who preferred anonymity said such an act had never happened in the hotel.

While commenting on the robbery incident, the Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO) of the command, Ms Olabisi Okuwobi, said “the police responded promptly to the distress call but the call was rather too late for the police to apprehend the criminals.”