Hoodlums suspected to be cult members on Thursday night shot dead the manager of a hotel in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital.

The late hotelier identified as Anthony Balogun was running the hotel owned by his mother before the unfortunate incident.

The unfortunate incident happened at about 8:00 pm inside the premises of the hotel located in the Olunlade area of the Ilorin metropolis.

Channels Television learned that the gunmen numbering about two had come into the hotel and requested to see the manager.

The deceased thinking that they were prospective customers came out of his room to meet them at the reception.

Then, the assailants were said to have called him out of the reception and shot him at close range in the chest, a source in the hotel said.

He said that the attackers macheted him on the head, hands and legs.

An elder sister to the deceased told Channels Television that she had reported the incident to the police.

“I called around 6:30 pm on that. At about 7 pm he called me back wanting to pass a piece of information to me. I told one of the children to pick up the call and that I would call him back as I was in the kitchen,” the sister who did not want her name mentioned said.

“At about 8 pm I returned his call but the phone had been switched off. I repeated three times to no avail.

“A few minutes later the wife called me that I should come to the Kwara State General Hospital, now Kwara State University Teaching Hospital, Ilorin. It was at the hospital I met his lifeless body badly mutilated”.

A source at the Ganmo Divisional Police Station in the outskirts of Ilorin where the case was reported described it as a case of possible homicide.

However, the state police command public relations officer (PPRO) Toun Ejire-Adeyemi, was yet to confirm the incident as efforts to speak with her had not yielded positive results. (Text, excluding headline: Channels TV)

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