The Conference Hotel in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital, owned by former Governor of the State, Otunba Gbenga Daniel, has been massively vandalised.
The hotel was sealed by the Ogun State Governor, Ibikunle Amosun, based on what is known as: “Personal Order.”
Since the outgoing Governor carried out the sealing of the hotel out as “Personal Order,” he had to deploy policemen posted to him to guard the place.
According to sources, Amosun could not get policemen from the Ogun State Police Command or the authority of the Inspector General of Police to seal the hotel, located on the State Secretariat Road at Oke Mosan, because there was no court order to such effect.
A police source told The Eagle Online: “Amosun has sealed the place up for the past two years by what the police called ‘Personal Order’.
“The IG and Ogun State Commissioner said the sealing up is not at their instance but that the Governor of a state has such powers to seal any place up using “Personal Order” on the excuse that it is a threat to security or any sundry excuse.
“To do this, he does not need to inform the police, but can deploy personal police security attached to him.
“If he needs real police intervention to seal up the place, he needs to provide evidence that there are issues on the property, which he does not have.”
According to available information, when the hotel was first sealed, Daniel went to the Federal High Court in Abeokuta, where he secured a favourable judgement over four years ago.
The State Government did not appeal the judgement, making it status barred after six months.
Owing to this development, it was learnt that Daniel began moves to put the hotel back in shape and also conducted employment interviews.
Over 1,000 persons were said to have applied for jobs in the hotel.
However, before this could be realised, Amosun moved some of the policemen attached to him to the hotel premises.
This was about the time Daniel was seeking the national chairman’s seat of his former party, the Peoples Democratic Party.
By the time Daniel settled down after the fierce contest and the electioneering for the 2019 general election, he applied to the Ogun State Police Command for policemen and the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps for protection to open the place since there was no court order barring him from operating the hotel.
The property, which had been under the watch of Amosun’s policemen was then discovered to have been massively vandalised.
The items vandalised are said to run into millions of Naira.
Sources, however, told The Eagle Online that Daniel was yet to decide on the next line of action.
There was no response to enquiries yet by Amosun as at press time.
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