Osun state police command has arrested Ramon Adedoyin, founder of Oduduwa University and Ile-Ife Polytechnic, over the death of Timothy Adegoke, the master’s degree student of Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU).
Adedoyin is also said to be the chairman of Hilton Hotel and Resort, Ile-Ife, where Adedoyin died.
Adegoke, 37, an Abuja-based chartered accountant and father of three, was initially reported missing after checking into Adedoyin’s hotel in Ile Ife on November 5.
He had travelled to Ife from Abuja for an examination that was scheduled to hold between November 6 and 7 at OAU’s Distance Learning Centre in Moro, Osun State, but was declared missing two days later when friends and family members could neither reach his phone line nor find him at the exam venue. He was however found dead later.
While six suspects were earlier arrested in connection to Adegoke’s death, the police said the deceased had lodged in Adedoyin’s hotel, hence his apprehension on Monday.
In a statement signed by Yemisi Opalola, the command’s spokesperson, on Wednesday, the police said the suspect has been detained.
The statement also added that Adedoyin is currently undergoing interrogation while they await the autopsy report from the hospital.
It reads;
Subsequent upon the earlier press release issued in respect of the circumstances surrounding the death of Mr Timothy Adegoke, a masters degree student of OAU who came from Abuja to sit for his examination at the OAU distance learning centre, Moro, Osun State, the Commissioner of Police, CP Olawale Olokode, psc, wishes to update the general public that, in addition to the six (6) suspects earlier arrested, the chairman of Hilton Hotel and Resort, Ile-Ife, Dr Ramon Adegoke Atobatele Adedoyin was also arrested on 15th November, 2021. He is currently in police detention, undergoing interrogation in connection with the case, while awaiting the autopsy report from the hospital.
Osun State Commissioner of Police, CP Olawale Olokode thanked members of the public, especially the bereaved family, students, and management of OAU for their patience to allow the police to continue on a thorough investigation on the matter. Olokode promised that the police is committed to ensuring that justice is done.
According to FIJ, Olugbade, the deceased’s brother said Usman Alkali Baba, the Inspector-General of Police (IGP), took interest in Adegoke’s death because of the public outcry it generated, and ordered a full scale investigation into it.
Olugbade stated;
When my brother died, the hotel staff secretly removed his body from his hotel room and went to bury his corpse at a place not too far from the hotel, along Ife/Moro road. The police had to go there to exhume his body from where it was buried.
When my brother went missing, his friends and colleagues in OAU broke themselves into groups and conducted a search around Ile Ife. When they got to Hillton Hotels and Resorts, where my brother would usually lodge anytime he was in Ife, the staff on duty denied ever seeing him during that period.
However, when the news of the missing student got to Osun State Police Command in Osogbo, said Olugbade, preliminary investigation revealed that Adegoke had made a transfer of N37,000 to a receptionist at the hotel as his accommodation fee on November 5.
He expressed;
When they arrested the lady, she confessed that my brother was indeed lodged in the hotel on November 5 and was given room 305 after making the payment to her. After the police carried out an intensive interrogation on the receptionist, five other staff members of the hotel were also arrested.
Olugbade told FIJ he learned that several people had died at Hilton Hotels and Resorts before his brother.
He said;
Rahmon Adedoyin, the owner of the hotel, has been arrested by the police. We as a family are also demanding that an autopsy be carried out on my brother’s corpse for us to know how exactly he died.
From what we heard, this is not the first time customers would be dying in his hotel; not even the second or the third time in that same hotel. We won’t rest until justice is served.
