ABUJA: How Police Officers Stormed Gwarinpa Hotel, Arrest Suspected ‘Kidnapper’

…‘It’s Business Gone Wrong Not Kidnapping’ – Hotel Management

Guests and staff of a popular hotel (name withheld) located at the 4th Avenue of Gwarinpa Estate in Abuja were thrown into panic mode on Monday night when the police stormed the hotel to arrest a suspected Kidnapper.

THE WHISTLER gathered that operatives from the Nigeria Police Force Criminal Investigation Department (FCID) numbering six and dressed in mufti, stormed the hotel after a tipoff to carry out the operation.

Information made available to THE WHISTLER by the hotel management indicated that the suspect had checked into the hotel in the afternoon on Monday, using a different reservation information.

The hotel manager, who preferred to be identified simply as Oforzoba, told THE WHISTLER that the suspect’s associate had secured the reservation using personal information, which shielded the suspect.

She said, “On April 15, at about 7 pm, the receptionist came to me saying that a group of policemen, about five to six of them, all in mufti were in the hotel. She said she was told that we had a killer in this hotel; I had to rush out to meet them. They showed me their ID Cards that they were from the FCID.

“They told me someone was here in our hotel room and they tracked him till they saw the car in this building.

“They even showed me the car, and later asked me who owns the car. I told them there are a lot of cars here, and it was not possible to know their owners,” Oforzoba told THE WHISTLER.

Unable to defend the situation, Oforzoba said she searched the hotel’s guest list form, and could not match the name of the suspect to any of the guests at the time.

The officers, she said subsequently took a wide guess on a particular name on the list.

The manager disclosed that the officers insisted on invading the room of the supposed guest. However, it turned out the occupant was not the suspect.

Raged by failed attempts to apprehend the suspect, the police officers became agitated and tried to arrest the hotel manager for obstructing lawful arrest, shrouding a suspected criminal and aiding his escape.

The situation led to an altercation between the management of the hotel and the police, even as Oforzoba struggled amid the chaos not to be arrested.

“The officers kept dragging me. They did not only manhandle me, but my staff as well,” Oforzoba revealed.

An audio recorded at the scene of the incident, and made available to THE WHISTLER by a source who pleaded anonymity further revealed what happened at the hotel.

A voice, presumably that of one of the officers could be heard angrily saying:

“He goes around kidnapping people, demanding ransom. Come and see this car, no number, and look at the manager, hiding him here.

“He came to hide here, and I do not know why you citizens cannot be effective to ourselves.

“Look at this hotel, we approached the manager, we called her aside, saying, please, do not let us harass you, but they went and hid him.

“This is a man who ran outside the country. He collects ransom and has duped a lot of people, millions of Naira.

“He cannot travel because the immigration is waiting for him. We tracked this man here. We saw the manager; we were begging her…,” the voice said.

‘Business Deal Gone Wrong Not Kidnapping’

However, THE WHISTLER learnt that the manager was subsequently arrested and forcefully whisked away.

While en route to the station, the operatives left behind at the hotel reached out with a revelation of the suspect’s arrest.

“They called the officer that angrily took me away, that they had seen the man. They said the person that lodged him was coming inside the hotel with food when they saw him and attacked him.

“The police said they had also been tracking him and immediately he was arrested, my staff told me he started to shout that he was not the person they were looking for and that the man was in Room 305,” Oforzoba narrated.

The management went ahead to recheck the guest list and confirmed that the name on the reservation was that of his associate and not the suspect.

“We traced the name in 305, and the room had the name of the person who made the reservation for him. We do that here, we take reservations, give you a form and take your ID card and other relevant information. So, they went there and they saw the man,” the manager noted.

She continued, “That was how they started dragging and beating him, and he was taken away.

Videos made available to THE WHISTLER showed how the suspect, dressed in a pair of black shirt and shorts was whisked away in a handcuff.

The suspect was heard both in the recorded audio and video pleading and saying he was neither a kidnapper nor a killer nor had he demanded ransom from anyone.

The hotel manager told THE WHISTLER that she was still taken to the station alongside the suspect that night, and was privileged to be abreast of the circumstances that allegedly led to the suspect’s arrest.

She said, “The funny thing was that all my mind — According to what the police said, the guy was a killer and he kidnapped someone and killed him — But when we got to the station at the FCID Area 11, it was a different thing entirely. It was a business gone wrong.

“In the whole situation, there was no killer, nobody kidnapped anybody. The police had to just say it so that I would be scared. The person who called the FCID for him was at the station.

“According to the conversation between them, he has been sending the suspect money to send cars to Nigeria; I could understand their conversation because they were Igbo, and I am also Igbo. I think there was a time when he stopped sending cars after receiving a lot of funds. There was no car, there was no money.

“And I can say for sure that the suspect would have been released because when the two of them were discussing, the person that arrested the suspect, told him (suspect) to hold on, so he spoke to the police.

“It was not a case of kidnapping or killing. It is all a pure lie. It is the situation of a business deal gone wrong. I think he ate the money, and based on their statement of account, he is not the only one. The suspect is a businessman who does business with a lot of people.

“He received money from many people and didn’t send them their cars. He was also not in the country for a long time. So, it is likely that he recently came to Nigeria and they tracked him and saw him here.

“This is just a hotel and we will never hide a criminal like they said. I think that was why he didn’t come himself. He sent someone to make a reservation for him.”

THE WHISTLER contacted the spokesperson of the FCT Police Command, Josephine Adeh, who confirmed the case was not under the jurisdiction of the command but, likely the Police Force Headquarters.

Our correspondent also contacted the police spokesperson, Muyiwa Adejobi for further details on the suspect and the situation that led to the suspect’s arrest, but he has yet to respond as of press time.