This story I’m about to share happened to me in Abuja.
Not too long ago, one news agency covered it, but the story was quickly silenced by powerful people. Maybe they’ll do the same if this one comes to their attention.
I was staying overnight in a hotel, which I’ll keep nameless. I had come into town to meet some business associates who were supposed to meet me at the hotel. They didn’t show up at the agreed time, so I went to the lobby to relax and have a drink.
That’s where I ran into a lady I knew from university. She had also traveled into town for business with her boss, and they were staying at the same hotel, though in separate rooms.
We hit it off immediately, reminiscing like old schoolmates. Night fell, and since my business associates canceled our meeting and postponed it to the next day—which is another story in itself—the lady and I continued talking.
Although she’d been a year behind me in university, we were in the same department. Back then, we weren’t friends, just familiar faces who often crossed paths in class transitions or departmental meetings. But somehow, that familiarity made it easy for us to reconnect.
One thing led to another, and she ended up in my room. Well, we did what we came into the room to do.
Around 3 to 3:30 a.m., I started hearing noises. The sounds grew louder—voices barking orders, gunshots. We were under attack. Armed robbers were raiding the hotel!
Panic hit me like a tidal wave as I considered my situation.
This woman wasn’t my wife. She’d confided in me earlier that she was separated from her husband and hadn’t had an intimate relationship in seven years. Meanwhile, I was a married man, with two children.
Quo vadis?
What if the robbers knocked down our door? I could hear them shouting, ordering people to open up or face gunfire. The chaos was deafening—women screaming, men shouting. I peeked out into the corridor and saw a few men stepping out in their boxers, their women hovering nervously behind them. This was a hotel, after all, not some cheap roadside lodge. I was shocked that armed robbers could attack a place like this.
Men scrambled back into their rooms, hiding their women in closets and bathrooms. The lady in my room was trembling uncontrollably—she had wet herself. I tried to get her to stay hidden in the wardrobe, but she kept panicking, coming out and lamenting.
“What will they tell my children if I die here in another man’s room? Ha! My boss is upstairs; he must have been knocking on my door to check if I’m safe. Ha! What if they rape me?”
Her words only heightened my own panic. What if the robbers did rape her? What if they killed her—or me? I could already see the headlines: “Married Man Killed in Hotel Room with Lover.” My wife would spit on my grave. My children… Oh Lord, what had I done to end up here?
Every possible scenario played out in my mind. Meanwhile, the robbers were breaking down doors, beating people. I could hear bodies hitting the floor, cries of pain. My lady and I just waited, bracing ourselves for our turn. I left the door slightly ajar, as I’d noticed other rooms down the corridor had done. We stood briefly in the hallway, but the tension was unbearable.
I couldn’t even pray. Pray to who? How could I, after what I’d just done? All I could do was ask God for forgiveness as the gunshots grew louder, the voices of the robbers even louder. I put on my jeans and a T-shirt, telling the lady to get dressed too. If we were going to die, at least we wouldn’t be found half-dressed.
I placed my phone, laptop, and wristwatch on the bed, ready for them to take. Why wait for a beating when I could surrender my belongings upfront?
I told myself, “Gbenga, ti e ba, e.”
Then we saw them—about six men, though I’m guessing there were more on the other floors. That’s when I clearly heard what they were shouting.
“Where are they? Bring them out right now or I’ll kill you!”
I froze, wondering, who are “they”? Who were they looking for? These couldn’t be armed robbers if they were asking for specific people, right?
Before I could make sense of it, I raised my hands in surrender and asked, “Who are you looking for?”
They didn’t answer. Instead, two of them barged past me and began ransacking my room. I kept asking, “Who una dey find?” Eventually, one of them responded—but let me tell you, our people can be wicked. They were clearly searching for someone, but why trash our rooms in the process? They emptied suitcases, scattered clothes, knocked toiletries and cups off tables, and left everything in chaos. All while beating people up.
They panicked us, no bi small
We never fully understood what was happening. Some guests said they’d called the police, but apparently, the police couldn’t respond because their pickups didn’t have fuel.
When they left my room, they’d slapped me once and hit my stomach with a gun to ensure I complied. Of course, they didn’t find whoever they were looking for and left shortly after.
Now, here’s the real story.
Some university girls had gone to a party near the hotel. They’d taken Canadian Loud—or maybe it was cookies laced with hemp. One of the girls had been warned not to eat the cookies, but she did anyway. She ate too much, or maybe her system couldn’t handle it. She got high and started acting out. Her friends panicked and called some university boys to help. This was around 2:30 a.m.
The boys arrived, took the girls—there were three in total, but only one was reacting—and got them a room at the hotel so the high girl could calm down. They couldn’t take her back to the university because she’d be caught high on drugs and likely expelled. So, they left her in the hotel room.
But the girl didn’t calm down. She kept screaming, vomiting, tearing her hair out. Her friends panicked further and decided to call her father, thinking she might die and hoping he could take her to the hospital.
Her father, a retired military man, was furious. I imagine he asked to speak to his daughter or was shown a video of her behavior. Seeing his child in such a state, he must have assumed the boys had given her drugs.
He gathered his men from the barracks, and they stormed the hotel, looking to kill the university boys.
Why he thought killing—or even arresting—the boys was the solution, I can’t say. Maybe he panicked as a father, seeing his daughter foaming at the mouth and displaying symptoms of epilepsy.
Maybe he thought she was dying.
Anyway, they stormed the hotel, found the girl still high and behaving erratically, and ordered their men to find the university boys, beat them, and jail them.
Thankfully, the boys had already returned to their hostel—perhaps their parents’ prayers were protecting them. If they’d been caught in the hotel that night, they might have been beaten to death by the military men who attacked us all.
It was nothing short of an attack.
I pieced all of this together after the gun-wielding soldiers left the hotel. Can you imagine? They came armed, ready to hunt down university boys over a misunderstanding.
This country, ehn—people in power are always eager to flex their authority, knowing they can get away with it.
The rest of us in the hotel were left traumatized.
With everything going on, I didn’t even notice when my lady friend left. I went looking for her much later, relieved that we weren’t being robbed and there was no longer a fear of her being raped. I went upstairs to her room, but she refused to open the door for me.
At least I made sure she was safe before leaving.
To this day, I’m still haunted by that night.
I heard the news was suppressed because the girl’s father threatened to sue any media outlet that dared to publish the story.
Hummn.
I didn’t name names…
This will be the last time I go wandering, I promised myself that!
(Series written and edited by Peju Akande and based on true stories)