MURDERED FOR MONEY: HOW A LAGOS HOTELIER RICHARD OLUMIDE ALLEGEDLY KILLED HIS MANAGER OVER FAMILY PROPERTY WHILE NIGERIAN POLICE WATERS CASE DOWN

Secret Reporters

As agencies saddled with the responsibility of checkmating and investigating criminal cases as well as prosecuting corrupt individuals in recent times may have failed to live up to expectation, the void created by their lack of integrity has given room to inhumane crimes in the society.

A clear example of such failure is the alleged murder case of Obayomi Moses, who before his death was the Manager of Saamhany Hotel, located at 187 old Ipaja Rd, Funmilayo Bus Stop, Agege, Lagos State,  and whom  according to our source, was allegedly murdered by the owner of the hotel, a former civil servant with Lagos State Government Mr. Richard Olumide Arohunmolase.

SecretReporters gathered that prior to his death, there had been a controversy between the extended family of the deceased and his sister simply identified as Lola who is also married to Mr Richard the owner of the hotel he manages. The issue was concerning their late parents’ property located at 11 Tonade Street, Ikeja, Lagos, whose documents had been in Lola’s custody for more than ten years as against the family’s consent.

With her vehement refusal to release the land document in her possession, an impromptu family meeting was fixed in May, 2018 by both the immediate and extended family mandating her to hand over the documents for the development of the land, instead she decided to entrust the said documents to her brother with her husband pleading with him not to on any account release the documents to any member of the family and also warned Yomi as his manager never to allow any member of extended family into his hotel after personally giving the document to him.

Three months later, the deceased who disclosed to his siblings that he has been living in fear of his life from the moment the document was handed over to him met and subsequently gave the documents to them after divulging that ever since he noticed strange attitudes and utterances from his sister Lola and her husband, he was convinced beyond reasonable doubt that they had forged the documents and presumably have used it over time as collateral for loans. Unfortunately, that was the last time Yomi was seen by his siblings, as a few weeks later an anonymous person contacted the family through their eldest sister Ronke to inform them that Yomi had passed on.

Despite having a health history of Asthma which he had successfully managed for the past 38 years, the family strongly believe that Yomi’s death had a lot to do with the information he divulged about his boss popularly called “emergency millionaire” and the document which he handed over to them as his corpse was said to have been found in a questionable position, squatting on the floor shirtless with his trousers on and his inhaler in his pocket with no struggle of any sort. 

The family members who were still recovering from the grave news was also earlier not allowed to see the corpse of the deceased by the Nigerian Police officers believed to be hired by Mr Richard. However, after much pleading the officers obliged but the family still couldn’t claim Yomi’s corpse as Mr Richard demanded that the family sign some documents and an affidavit for him before they could be granted access to the corpse owing to his political ambition in future which the family objected to.

It was revealed that the case which was reported to the Nigeria Police, Dopemu Division, Agege by the family was initially handled by one Sergeant Ahmed the Investigative Police Officer (IPO) who later referred the case to the State Criminal Investigation Department, Panti, Lagos State under Supol Gafar.

A shabby investigation we learned was said to have been carried out as the family members cried foul for not been carried along while the hotel was still in business as they alleged that little or nothing was done regarding the case. This led to a written petition sent to the Investigative Department Abuja by the family knowing full well that Mr Richard had bought his way out.

The acknowledged petition from Abuja led to the dispatch of a three-man police investigative team led by inspector Halidu Ahmadu who after interrogating and obtaining written statements from the deceased’s family members requested that Mr Richard and his wife, Lola report to the  Abuja Investigative department on the 6th Nov. 2018.

However, according to the family, Mr Richard through his lawyer cunningly persuaded officer Halidu to postpone the invitation to 14th of November 2018, which he obliged to.

With the case now lingering into months, the family members who are now perturbed call on relevant authorities to wade into the matter so that justice will prevail as they have currently lost faith in the police investigative team currently in charge of the case.