50-yr-old hotel owner killed by his workers, they escaped with his car, documents & CCTV

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The Niger State Police Command, has started investigations into the killing of the owner of Deploo Hotel and Suites, Lucky Okonkwo, who was murdered on Friday, August 19th in his hotel in Suleja, Niger State.


It was learnt that 59-year-old Lucky
was stabbed to death on Friday by a
three-man gang, suspected to be
workers at the hotel, shortly after he
returned from a trip to Kaduna. He
was said to be at the hotel for the purpose of supervision.

After killing the victim, the suspects
took away the Closed Circuit
Television decoder of the hotel, the
victim’s phones and fled in his
Peugeot 406 saloon car.
They also took away a file containing certain information about the hotel.
The security men at the hotel, who
were the prime suspects, were
reported to have fled immediately
the incident happened and had since been unreachable on their
telephone lines.

They were identified as Frank Anavukko, Victor Anerah and
Emmanuel Adeh.

A source told Punch that the incident was discovered Saturday morning by a housekeeper who saw a pool of blood streaming out from the victim’s office.

The matter was reported at the Madalla Police Division and some of the hotel workers were arrested.

Lucky, an indigene of Delta State,
was said to be the immediate past
Vice-President of the Nigerian
Association of Technology
Engineering, North-West zone.

The victim’s first son, Paul, told Punch that his father was killed around 7pm. He stated that workers at the hotel claimed not to have known when his father was murdered.
He said, “He just returned from a trip
and around 7pm of that day, he
went to his office. When his workers
didn’t see him and they discovered
he was not reachable on his
telephone lines, they called my mum the following day.

“She rushed down to the hotel and
met him in a pool of blood. The
workers claimed they didn’t know
when it happened. They said they
only saw three people going into his office and the same set of people driving out in his car. They said they also saw those people with the CCTV decoder and when they queried them, they said, ‘Oga asked us to go and repair it’.

“Aside from the CCTV and the car,
those men also left with his money
and other valuables. We don’t really
know the motivation for the
murder.”

Paul said the family reported the case to the police at the Madalla division, adding that some of the workers on duty at the time had been arrested.

He urged the police to speed up
investigations and bring the perpetrators of the crime to book.

A source said the father of five
struggled with his assailants before
he was overpowered and killed. He said,

“The man was a retired PHCN
worker. He was killed on Friday
night. On Saturday morning, a man
cleaning the hotel saw a pool of
blood coming out of his office and
raised the alarm. At the scene, there was a knife with which he was killed.
There were also signs of struggle as
the office table was broken. He had a deep knife cut in his palm, probably while he was holding the knife from piercing into him. They drove away his grey colour Peugeot 406 saloon car, with number plate KUJ-424 BB. They also made away with a file containing some information about the hotel.”

It was gathered that the case had
already been transferred to the State Criminal Investigation and
Intelligence Department, Minna. A
source said the fleeing hotel guards
were the prime suspects.

“One of them is already in Port
Harcourt, Rivers State. How can
something happen on Friday and in
less than 24 hours, you have already disappeared to Port Harcourt if not that you are culpable?”

The Police Public Relations Officer,
Niger State Police Command, Elkana
Bala, said the police were closing in
on the suspects, saying police
findings showed that Lucky was
killed by his workers.