#justicefortimothyadegokeoludare
I think we should not be unnecessarily distracted with Adedoyin’s voice mail now trending, rather, we should use the opportunity of the voice mail to have a further insight into the probable nature of the hotel proprietor, his management style, his staff and the type of hotel he runs.
This is my concern since I listened to his voice mail, and not the chief suspect’s desperate attempt to be heard. Every suspect wants to be heard, anywhere, anytime, if the opportunity comes, after all, many criminal suspects, including those paraded by police, seized the opportunity of media presence to quickly speak out to deny the charges against them, in most cases, or try to seek public sympathy for being implicated or for showing remorse. Fair hearing and “fear hearing” start at any point of a case. How the chief suspect, in this case, Chief Adedoyin, the rich and well connected Maye of Ife, got the opportunity is another issue entirely.
My focus here is to evaluate the voice mail objectively on the criteria of probability and possibility, assumption without concession.
I have been patronizing different kinds of hotel since 1980, that’s 41 years ago, either as a short time guest or as a full lodger, in many cities and villages of Nigeria and abroad, so with this experience, I can carefully make some deductions based on Adedoyin’s voice mail and the nature of his hotel.
I have not been to Adedoyin’s Hilton Hotel & Resort, but my friends in Ife told me the hotel is an “offshoot” of the popular Diganga hotel in Ile Ife. When I was in Ife, Diganga was a standard sort of 3-star hotel that ranked with Mayfair hotel in the ancient town before the proliferation of some better hotels in the ancient town now.
Fela – Anikulapo-Kuti would have been lodged at Diganga hotel in 1991 when the Great Ife students union brought him under my presidency to perform during the union week in a concert we tagged Abami Night. But because we could not pay in full, we had to quickly make arrangements with Mayfair hotel. In the rating of hotels then, Diganga ranked higher to many guests than Mayfair. So, if Adedoyin bought Diganga hotel with millions of Naira (nine figures worth) refurbished it and built more structures to compete with other good hotels in Ife, then, his Hilton hotel can’t be a regular short time hotel of “anything goes”. (Although, all hotels are short time hotels depending on the financial status of the guests. A billionaire can pay for full lodging and walk away after few hours of rest with his female partner).
But in this case, Hilton can’t be a regular short time hotel or an hotel without any management structure, trained personnel and security facilities as Ogundoyin portrayed it. More so, based on Maye’s status, as a university and polytechnic entrepreneur with international exposure, he couldn’t have run the type of hotel he painted in his voice mail.
An hotel where full time guests can pay into personal account of staff and the workers can share the money just like that? I have my doubt. I don’t think village short time hotels would do that for a full lodger, more so, a lodger that would spend more than a day. Such pranks may be practised with short time guests who will spend few hours and disappear before being detected by the hotel owners.
Now the questions that follow:
How does he / his manager monitor his hotel daily/weekly/monthly, on CCTV, unscheduled visit, book checking or how? Does the hotel located near OAU, have a CCTV in his premises including, security gate, car park & reception except in the rooms?
Why the coincidence that it was the guest who didn’t pay to the official account (according to Adedoyin) that eventually got killed or (died naturally as his lawyer claimed)? How many guests lodged at the hotel that day the deceased lodged and during the tragic incident? How many of them also paid to a wrong account and not into the hotel account?
Did Timothy pay the exact official amount for his accommodation? Because any guest who wants to do deal with crooked hotel staff won’t pay in full, at least, he must have a gain for his conspiracy with the hotel staff to cheat the hotel management. Was Timothy a first time lodger, if not, what was his payment style before; to hotel’s official account or individual’s account?
At what point did Adedoyin get to know about the death of Timothy, and why his initial denial that Timothy lodge in his hotel when he had not done diligent investigation, knowing the type of hotel he runs? (as painted by him). Then, what character of staff did he employ? Because if the whole staff can easily conspire among themselves and easily agreed to bury a staff who they claimed died naturally in their hotel, then, there’s a problem of character of the employer and his employees. It’s very remote that two or more hotel workers who had not experienced such tragic incident of a guest dying in their hotel before would easily agree without fear or objection from any of them that the guest corpse should be thrown away without immediately reporting the incidence to their manager, supervisor, police and proprietor, it’s very very remote, even if truly they diverted the accommodation fee to their own account.
The first instinct of a non-criminal minded hotel worker is to call police. And lastly, did the hotel have security personnel at all, or the security staff also conspired with other workers to throw away the corpse of their guest? These are some of the issues and thoughts that Adedoyin’s voice mail provoked in me when I listened to it yesterday.
Since every suspect is assumed innocent until proven to be guilty by a court of law, I will still give Chief Adedoyin, the benefit of the doubt, but his voice mail response seems not to help his case but damaged it further when carefully analyze.
Justice for Timothy is non-negotiable. It must be done and seen to be done.
At least what is not in doubt now is that Timothy lodged in Adedoyin’s Hilton hotel, he died in his room and the hotel staff criminally decided to give their dead guest an indecent secret burial without informing his family and the police. And the hotel’s proprietor hastily denied that the guest lodged in his hotel without conducting diligent investigation which may make him culpable in this case.
We are watching to see that justice is done to all.
- Soetan, is a student and human rights activist