Gwarinpa police combat hotel attackers

Men of the FCT police attached to Gwarinpa division recently combated suspected armed robbers numbering about eight who went to a popular hotel in Gwarinpa.

A police source said the suspects had stopped at the gate of the hotel and started shooting indiscriminately in the air, scaring the neighborhood before entering the hotel.

The source said people started running for safety and that residents, who heard the gunshots alerted the police of the commotion going on in the area.

“When they entered the hotel, they stole some laptops belonging to the hotel and some lodgers, some undisclosed amount of money was also stolen and when we stormed the hotel, they opened fire on us and we responded as much as we could because they had more sophisticated weapons,” the police source said.

The source also told our reporter that though their weapons were more sophisticated, Gwarinpa police exercised professionalism, thereby forcing the robbers to abandon some of their weaponry including a pump action gun and some of the stolen items before fleeing the area.

When contacted, the Gwarinpa Divisional Police Officer, Chief Superintendent Afolabi Wilfred, confirmed the incident and said that before the attack, he contacted owners of hotels in Gwarinpa on the security situation in the area and the need to tackle insecurity in the area.

He said unfortunately none of the hotel owners showed interest in talking about security, adding that they did not respond to a call for a meeting that would have helped everyone, including them - owners of hotels in Gwarinpa.

The Gwarinpa police chief decried the poor response to the security situation in the area and the lack of co-operation amongst the residents, describing it as appalling.