Prison officer suspected of killing journalist found dead in Lokoja hotel

By Richard Elesho

A staff of the Nigeria Correctional Centre, Pelumi Adebayo, suspected to be the murderer of one Ayo Aiyepekun, a young photo journalist in Lokoja, Kogi State may have committed suicide.

Pelumi’s dead body was discovered in a hotel room this Thursday, a day after his involvement in the Tuesday night murder became public knowledge.

The corpse of the suspect was recovered by policemen just before journalists arrived at the hotel.

It was gathered that Pelumi checked into the private Lodge on Wednesday morning with the name Olorunpelumi Jacob. It was, however, later discovered that the name on his Correctional Centre Identity Card, where he is a Deputy Superintendent, did not include Jacob.

A source in the Lodge said he did not leave the hotel room until much later in the evening when he went out briefly and returned shortly after.

At day break on Thursday, the staff of the Lodge became curious when the guest did not come out. After knocking his door persistently without a response, they alerted the police.

On arrival, the law enforcement officers forced the door to open only to discover his lifeless body on the bed. A bottle of coke and a container of Snipper was also found in the room, fuelling the suspicion of suicide.

Pelumi was reported to have killed the photo journalist, a staff of Inside Story, an online medium on Tuesday night inside the desolate premises housing the media office. He had allegedly asked the victim to help him lift a load into his pickup van before fatally assaulting him.

According to an eye witness who worked with the InsideStory, he was in the office with the victim doing some video and photo editing when the suspect called the victim to help him out in his poultry farm which is inside the same compound.
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‎”It was around 7:30pm when the suspect called him, but he didn’t know that Ayo was not the only person in the office. Immediately, Ayo got out, Adebayo hit him with iron repeatedly and killed him there.”
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‎The eye witness said he saw the suspect lifting the body into a deep freezer in his Hilux Van prompting him to raise alarm, “I called some people on the phone who mobilized the vigilante in the area, but before they came, Adebayo had made away with the dead body.”
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‎The witness said along with the vigilante, they searched the area but could only see blood stains in the freezer and around the poultry store.
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‎”While the vigilante were still with us, the suspect drove into the compound with his van and when he saw us, he turned back and refused to stop, but the vigilante chased him and along the line, his car had an accident during the chase which made him jumped out of the vehicle and ran away.”
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‎The witness said the van was also stained with blood. He said that while the body was yet to be recovered, they feared that ritual may be the motiff behind crime.

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