The response of the Rivers State Command of the Nigeria Police over the incidents of hotel murders of at least eight ladies, qualifies for attention, given the far reaching impact it will have beyond the immediate circumstances of the heinous crimes. Following the incidents of murder of these ladies in some hotels in the state, the Commissioner of Police, Mustapha Dandaura, summoned hotel owners to a meeting where some new codes of practice in guest reception and management were adopted. Among these were the installation of close circuit television (CCTV) systems and detailed profiling of hotel guests pursuant to providing same information to the police on demand. To accentuate his point, the Commissioner clarified to them that in the event of untoward developments in their facilities – such as the incidence of criminal conduct, they as hotel operators and staff immediately qualify as accomplices to the crime, at least until their innocence is proved beyond reasonable doubt.
Drastic and novel as the measures may be seen by some, they constituted the minimum standard with respect to the issue of integrity of hotel services. The utility of such measures far outweighs whatever inconvenience and costs they may impose on the respective hotel operators and guests. Just as well, the implications of the measures with respect to enhancing the general state of insecurity in the state justify by far, the need for their effective implementation. Already, their effectiveness has been established as some suspects in respect of the reported crimes have been arrested and are helping police investigations. The most recent was that of a man who was allegedly in the act of suffocating with a pillow, the lady he spent the night with in a Diobu hotel. Her vigilance saved her life as she was able to stop him from executing his plan before raising alarm. Meanwhile, as a manifestation of the public revulsion over the development, the outcry over it has been stringent with at least one group of sympathetic women has actually taken to the streets to express solidarity with the victims of the dastardly acts.
Seen within the context of the riot act by the Police to the hoteliers, it could not have come at a more auspicious time than now. Even as it can be said that the unprecedented murders of the unfortunate ladies prompted the Police order to hoteliers in the Rivers State, the measures are better late than never. Among the factors that define the merit of the Commissioner’s position are at least two. In the first place is the fact that hotel management has its traditional code of ethics which are intended to guarantee the safety of both workers and guests. Being locations where anybody no matter the character, capabilities and motives can come in and enjoy hospitality, there are traditional risks associated with their operations. For this reason, developed countries where hoteling has been better managed, pay premium attention to the issues of identity of guests and other patrons of hotels. Among hotel guests can be the good, the bad and ugly characters, and as the playwright, William Shakespeare put it, one cannot tell the character of any individual just by the facial features. So ordinarily, hotel monitoring remains a primary duty of the Police as they constitute the choice locations for sundry crimes, due to the anonymity they provide guests.
Secondly, given the heightened scale of anti-crime operations in the state courtesy of the resolve of the government to tackle its perpetrators to a standstill, the traditional bases of the miscreants are under surveillance, hence, forcing them to seek fresh bases which include hotels, especially the non – descript ones that can easily escape the prying eyes of the law. Hence, the new initiative by the Rivers State Police Command offers the promise of placing tracers on not only serial women killers but also other criminals that habitually use hotels as their operational rendezvous. Thus, by the riot act to the hoteliers, the Police is expected to kill more than one bird with that single metaphorical stone.
Meanwhile, this is to express the condolence of this column to the bereaved families of the deceased, whose deaths have stirred the conscience of the society to the outrage spawned by the presence of demented serial killers in our midst. We have been hearing of killings by armed robbers whose proclivity to murder their victims is borne out of the devilish urge to instill fear and facilitate compliance with their demands. There is also the spate of killings by cultists in order to press home their underworld values. What then can be said about killers who do it for no justifiable reason other than the fun of seeing others, and in this case women with whom they could have been passionately intimate, die?

Monima Daminabo