By Festus Ahon

ASABA—MANAGING Director of Richard Continental Hotel, Sapele, Delta State, Mr Richard Okotie, has called on the authorities of the Nigerian Army and the Police to investigate the alleged invasion of his hotel premises by some solders and policemen, led by men of the Sapele vigilantes.

Narrating his ordeal in a statement, Okotie said: “On February 18, about 23.18 hours, my hotel was invaded by solders, policemen and vigilante that came in five Hilux vans and shot into the air to scare our customers.

“The combined team of soldiers, policemen and the vigilante, forced all our customers to sit or lie flat on the floor at gun point. Even pregnant women were not spared the ordeal.

“For over one hour, they harassed and embarrassed our customers.”

The leader of the local vigilante took the soldiers upstairs to knock on the doors of some of our customers. They conducted search of their rooms and their cars and nothing incriminating was found.

“Some of our customers, about 20 of them were handcuffed, others have their hands tied together behind and thrown into their hilux van and driven away to the Sapele police station and locked up, but as we speak all of them have been bailed without any charges brought against any of them.”

Saying that security agencies in Sapele had not dimmed it fit to brief him on what led to the raid, he decried that he suffered a loss well over N300, 000 and other unquantifiable damages as a result of the raid.

Assuring his teaming customers of their safety, he said   appropriate measures have put in place to avoid reoccurrence of such unwarranted invasion.