After 2yrs trial, court sentences disgraced Adedoyin to death for killing post-graduate student

After nearly two of trials in Osun State, a hotelier, Dr Ramon Adedoyin, has been sentenced to death for the murder of a post-graduate student of the Obafemi Awolowo University (AOU), Ile-Ife, Timothy Oludare Adegoke.

The deceased Adegoke was killed while as a guest lodging at the Hiltons Hotels and Resorts, Ile-Ife, owned and operated by Dr Adedoyin, last November, 2021, in a trial which dragged for nearly two years and moved from the Federal High Court in Abuja to the High Court in Osun State, amid allegations that the Inspector General of Police, Usman Baba Alkali, and security operatives in Abuja, may have been compromised.

In February, 2022, new lawyer to the family of the deceased OAU student, Mr Femi Falana SAN, secured justice in the first round of the legal tussle after he got the Nigeria Police Headquarters to withdraw the suit originally filed at the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) sitting in Abuja.

Federal Government, which is the complainant, had notified the FCT court in Abuja that it was discontinuing the matter in a letter, titled, “Notice of Discontinuance of Charge No. CR/015/22 Brought pursuant to Section 108 of Administration of Criminal Act (ACJA) 2015.”

“Take notice that the Complainant discontinues all of the proceedings in this case against the above-named Defendants for further investigation, dated this 7th day of February 2022,” the notice read.

It would be recalled that the police had in January 2022 formally filed criminal charges against the owner of Hilton Hotel, Ramon Adedoyin, and others over the death of Timothy Adegoke.

Controversy has surrounded Adegoke’s death since he went missing lodging at Hilton Hotel and Resort in Ile-Ife, Osun State, following which his corpse was later found in a grave.

The defendants in the suit are listed as; Dr Ramon Adedoyin, Adedeji Adesola, Magdalene Chiefuna, Adeniyi Aderogba, Oluwale Lawrence, Oyetunde Kazeem, Adebayo Adekunle, Prince Raheem Adedoyin, Esther Asigoh and Quadiri Moshood.

Those declared by the police to be still at large are; son of the hotel owner, Raheem Adedoyin, Esther Asigoh and Quadiri Moshood.

However, counsel to the Adegoke family, Femi Falana SAN had earlier in January requested from the Inspector General of Police that the trial of all suspects arrested in connection with the student’s death at the hotel be moved to Osun State from Abuja.

The decision to move investigation and prosecution to Abuja was earlier suggested by the Adegoke family who had feared that the Osun police command may have been compromised in the matter, an option taken before the engagement of Falana as counsel.

Falana had said the demand was made since none of the elements of the offence to be tried by the FCT High Court took place in Abuja.

Legal experts have noted that had the case continued at the Abuja court, the defendants would have exploited a loophole to ask the court to dismiss the case over lack of jurisdiction to entertain the matter.

However, delivering judgement on he matter, Tuesday, May 30, the Osun State Chief Judge, Justice Oyebola Ojo, after establishing that Adedoyin was culpable in the death of Adegote, sentenced him to death by hanging for the killing of the post-graduate student of the Ile-Ife university.

The Chief Judge, in her judgement, said the owner of the hotel and two of his workers, based on the circumstances of the case established by the prosecuting counsel, Femi Falana, SAN, were found culpable of conspiracy to commit murder, unlawful killing of the deceased.

Adegoke who was murdered at the Hilton Hotel and Honours on November 6, 2021, had travelled to the town in order to write an exam at the OAU Distance Learning Centre, Moro campus, when he was declared missing on November 7.

Adegoke’s body was discovered after some suspects, including workers at the hotel, were arrested by the police.

Adegoke had lodged in Hilton Hotel between October 22 and November 5, 2021, before he was later declared missing.

 It would also be recalled that in November 2021, few days after his arrest for murder of the OAU student, the Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Ogunwusi (Ojaja II) suspended the embattled Founder of Oduduwa University Dr. Ramon Adedoyin from his Council of Chiefs.

Adedoyin holds the traditional title of Maye of Ile-Ife.

Adedoyin was arrested by the Osun State Police Command on allegation of involvement in the murder of a post-graduate student of Timothy Adegoke, at his Hiltons Hotels and Resorts, Ile-Ife.

In the same vein, Adedoyin’s son who managed the hotels was declared wanted after he fled over the incident.

This is the second time Adedoyin will be suspended as Maye of Ile-Ife.

In 2018, he was suspended over a trending Poem, ‘Ewi’ on the Ooni, Oba Adeyeye Ogunwusi released to defame the stool and character of the frontline monarch.

Also in November, the  Osun State Police disclosed that one of the suspects held in connection with the death of Timothy Adegoke, had confessed that son of the owner of Hiltons Hotels and Resorts, Ile-Ife, Raheem Adedoyin, arranged how the corpse was to be evacuated and taken to the bush.

The police boss said Raheem, who is the Managing Director of the hotel where the late Adegoke reportedly died, organised how the corpse was evacuated from the facility and buried without informing the police.

The police however said Raheem was on the run, adding that in the course of police investigation into the matter, detectives were able to discover where the corpse was buried.

Osun police had, November 2021, arrested Chief Adedoyin who is also the Founder of Oduduwa University and the Polytechnic, in Ile-Ife, over the death of a Master of Business Administration student of the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Timothy Oludare Adegoke inside a hotel owned by the educationist.

Dr Adedoyin is also the Chairman of Hilton Hotel and Resort, Ile-Ife, where the deceased is believed to have died; this, in addition to the land beside the hotel on which the late Adegoke was hurriedly buried in a shallow grave.

The late Timothy Oludare Adegoke, reportedly visited Ile-Ife from Abuja to sit for his examination at the OAU distance learning centre, in Moro, Osun State on November 5.

Adegoke who was declared missing on November 7 was found dead two days later, on the 9^th.

The police acting on orders from the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Mr Usman Baba Alkali, arrested six suspects linked to the death of the student.

Police arrested Adedoyin , on November 15, 2021.

Meanwhile, the death of Oludare has pitched the state police against family of the deceased who had alleged attempt to cover-up the crime by the former.

This is also as the involvement of the IGP Alkali was perfected by the family of the deceased student who had feared that the powers that be in the state may compel the police command to cover up the case against Dr. Ramon Adedoyin, who is also a chief in Ife.

While relatives of the deceased claim he was found buried on the premises of Hilton Hotels and Resorts, the property owner and staff of the hotel initially denied knowing the late Oludare, only to allegedly confess on interrogation.

A cousin of the deceased, Mr Gabriel Ogunlana said Dr Adedoyin had initially threatened to arrest Timothy’s brother, Gbade after alleging that he constituted a nuisance to his hotel when the family was looking for him (Timothy) in the hotel.

Ogunlana said it was the family who contacted the Inspector General of Police, Usman Baba, which led the police chief to involve the Osun State Commissioner of Police before the death of his cousin was uncovered.

“It was the confessional statement of the lady staff member in the hotel, Adesola Tobiloba that led to the arrest of five others. The lady confessed that Manager 4 — the Alfa (Islamic cleric) — was always around any time they wanted to perform that act of killing. That he was in charge of the (murder) act.

“When the Alfa came, he wanted to exonerate himself. He said he left Ife on the 5th (of November). Police asked him where he went and he said he left for Ejigbo. And the police were able to track Timothy’s line to Ejigbo. It was Alfa’s confessional statement that led to where Timothy was buried.

“We noticed some kind of conspiracy on the part of the police. Alfa confessed that Timothy was not the first person they murdered this year. He was the fifth person. They were saying they knocked on the door and when it was not opened, they used the spare key to open it and found him dead. They now said they buried him. The police asked if they reported it, they said no.

“It was when we noticed the manner by which the police were carrying out the job that we began to talk to the media. They were trying to cover up,” Ogunlana said.

Speaking on the part played by the chairman of the hotel, Ogunlana alleged, “On Wednesday, when the brother of the deceased, Gbade brought the receipts of previous lodgings, the police went there with him and met the owner there. The owner said the fact that he (Timothy) came there the previous week did not mean he came there the following week. He said they didn’t see him that week. The brother called me and said ‘I’m in front of the owner of the hotel, they said he is a king, they said he is a prince. He is threatening to arrest me that I’m asking about the whereabouts of my brother.’

“That owner (Adedoyin) was threatening to arrest Timothy’s brother. He said he was constituting a nuisance to the hotel. Throughout that week, the owner was there. He was coming to that hotel.

“The elders in our family called the Inspector-General of Police in Abuja before all these things started to come out. How they discovered his corpse, the police seemed to have known. They asked us if we could identify the corpse of the person we were looking for, we said yes. They brought out a shovel, so they dug the ground and brought out a carton according to them.

“They discovered in the carton that the deceased was wrapped with the duvet from the hotel. When they unwrapped it, they discovered it was the person that was missing. They didn’t unwrap him completely; they asked that he should be taken to the mortuary.

“The police were now reporting that the carton was not really big, he was squeezed. It was there they discovered that parts of the body had been mutilated and they did not allow any member of the family to see beyond the part they revealed. They just put it in the morgue there. Then, they came back, and ordered the arrest of the owner of the hotel.

“The intriguing part of the story is that he was not kidnapped from the airport as earlier insinuated; he was killed in the hotel where he lodged. The Hilton and Resorts Hotel where he lodged belongs to Mr Rahman Adedoyin (Maye of Ife), the owner of Oduduwa University in Ile-Ife.

“Initially, when we approached the hotel to ask about him, they denied that he was their guest for the weekend. The owner of the hotel (Adedoyin) vehemently dismissed Timothy.

“However, upon police investigation, the Police established that Timothy paid for the hotel and lodged there for the night. Also, they located his mutilated corpse wrapped in a blood-soaked blanket/bed sheet belonging to the hotel and buried in a shallow grave near the hotel.”