Gunmen Attack Policemen in Nnewi, Kill One, Murder Hotel Manager in Kwara

David-Chyddy Eleke in Awka and Hammed Shittu in Ilorin

Gunmen operating in Nnewi, Anambra State, yesterday attacked a police van, killing one of the policemen at a junction.
 Sources said the incident happened at about 9a.m. yesterday and that the attackers when repelled by the policemen threw an improvised explosive device at the police team, and that one of them was ripped by the device.

 Police command in the state however confirmed this in a statement by the state police command’s spokesperson, SP Tochukwu Ikenga.
 Ikenga said the Commissioner of Police, CP Nnaghe Obono Itam, has ordered a manhunt operation on the gunmen.
He confirmed that the men were attacked at a checkpoint at Omata Junction, in Uruagu community, along the Nnewi Oba Road.
He said, “The manhunt operation led by Assistant Commissioner in charge of Nnewi Area Command is already working with the locals in the area to unmask and apprehend the attackers.”

In a related development, gunmen suspected to be cult members on Thursday night shot dead the manager of a hotel in Ilorin, Kwara State capital.
 The deceased whose name was identified as Mr. Anthony Balogun, was the one running the hotel owned by his mother before the unfortunate incident.
 The incident according to THISDAY checks happened around 8p.m. on the ill-fated night inside the premises of the hotel located in the Olunlade area of the Ilorin metropolis.

It was gathered that gunmen numbering about two had allegedly 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 on the chest, source said.
 They were said to have macheted him on the head, hands and legs.

 Speaking to THISDAY, senior sister of the late hotelier, who sought anonymity, said that she had reported the incident to the police.
According to her, “I called around 6:30p.m. on that. At about 7p.m. he called me back wanting to pass a piece of information to me. I told one of the children to pick the call that I would call him back as I was in the kitchen.

 “At about 8p.m. 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.”