Published 17th Nov, 2021

By Tola Owoyele

Rahmon Adegoke Adedoyin, a popular business mogul and educationist in Ile Ife, Osun State, has been arrested by men of the Osun State Police Command in connection with the death of Timothy Oludare Adegoke, an MBA student at the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile Ife, Osun State, FIJ can confirm.

Olugbade, the deceased’s brother, told FIJ that Adedoyin, the founder of Hilton Hotels and Resorts where Adegoke died, was indicted by the staff of the hotel following their arrest by the police.

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.

According to Olugbade, the deceased’s brother, 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.

“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,” Olugbade told FIJ. “The police had to go there to exhume his body from where it was buried.”

BEFORE ADEGOKE WAS FOUND DEAD

“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,” Olugbade said.

However, when the news of the missing student got to the 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.

“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.”

NOT THE FIRST TIME AT HILTON

Olugbade told FIJ he learned that several people had died at Hilton Hotels and Resorts before his brother.

“Rahmon Adedoyin, the owner of the hotel, has been arrested by the police,” he said. “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.”

WHO IS RAHMON ADEDOYIN?

FIJ gathered that Adedoyin is currently in detention at the Osogbo Police Command headquarters. Adedoyin, a 64-year-old educationist and founder of the Oduduwa University and The Polytechnic, Ile Ife, was born into the royal family of Akui.

He once claimed that Okunade Sijuade, the late Ooni of Ife, had nominated him as his successor before his death because of his developmental strides in the ancient town.

Adedoyin founded The Polytechnic in 1984 and Oduduwa University in 2009.

ADEDOYIN’S ARREST

A statement released by Yemisi Opalola, the spokesperson for Osun police, on Wednesday, stated that Adedoyin was arrested on Monday night.

“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,” the statement reads.

ADEGOKE, A GENTLEMAN

“I am his brother and I believe I am in a position to tell you who Timothy was. He was an easy-going person that neither drank nor smoked. He was not also a wayward person. If he told you he was at a particular location, that was where you would meet him. He was a good family man that loved and cared about his family, ” Olugbade told FIJ.

“He would never engage in any physical or verbal confrontation with anyone. It is so unfortunate that they took my brother’s life, so unfortunate. During the police interrogation, the suspects confessed that my brother died in his hotel room on the day he was lodged in. But they are yet to tell us how he died.”

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