A Lagos-based Twitter user has narrated how a security official at the Rockview Hotel Royale in Abuja harassed and physically assaulted her and her husband because they attempted to bring in food from an external restaurant.
The aggrieved guest, who narrated her ordeal on social media on Sunday, said trouble began when she tried to bring in a meal from Farm City, a local restaurant.
She said that when she and her husband arrived at the hotel on Friday, she placed an order for rice and chicken, which sold for N6,500, but could not eat it because it was a bit off.
The Twitter user said that she and her husband went for an event at Farm City on Saturday evening, where they got their dinner before heading back to the Rockview Hotel Royale.
But as soon as the couple arrived at the hotel, a security officer asked if they were aware of the hotel’s policy about food from external kitchens, to which they responded in the negative.
Their ignorance, she said, could not save them from the hard and fast rule because the official insisted they could not go in with the food.
Their next resort was to find the manager of the hotel to explain their situation to him, but they waited in vain for him for over 10 minutes.
Since she was ill and needed to eat before taking her medications, her husband handed her the food and asked her to go to the room while he continued to wait at the reception for the manager, but the security official would not let her go.
“My husband collected the food from me and asked me to walk in front of him. This security official started to drag the food from him and then raised his voice in anger. Even after pouring our food away, this guy was telling my husband ‘don’t let me lay my hands on you’. I was very calm all along until he started to lie that he did not touch the food,” she said.
She said she went to the official to ask him not to lie about what had happened, and he pushed her to the ground. As the fight became full-blown, the security official kept punching her husband while also sticking one on her as though she were a man, she said.
“This dude dragged my hair so much that two strands came off. They have a camera, and it happened right in front of it; I dare them to pull out the footage,” she said.
After some time, a manager showed up, accompanied by a gun-wielding police officer. She said that while they were explaining to the inquisitive manager what happened minutes earlier, the security official came around to continue issuing threats to them.
For a hotel that seemed empty, she said, several people then came, and the manager kept telling them to go to their room while an armed policeman was beside him.
“We asked the manager if he was trying to threaten us, because under no circumstance does bringing in food warrant beating up a guest. As we were there settling the case, we saw people bringing in nylons upon nylons of foods, and nobody stopped them or harassed them let alone assaulting them,” she said.
She said while this went on, the manager acted as if things were out of his control and feigned to be on a call for almost half an hour while the issue remained unresolved.
“They have refused to drop the name of the security official. We don’t even know the manager’s name. All he kept saying was ‘he is our staff’. They’re protecting someone that didn’t represent their organization well,” she said.
“As no resolve was forthcoming, I went into the room. 15 minutes later, my husband came in and said they offered to compensate us with pastries. I was taken aback.”
She said she went to bed hungry and with a swollen eye.
“They saw the way we were dressed and knew we weren’t from around there, and that was why we were treated like that,” she said.
When FIJ called Rockview Hotel Royale for comments on the matter, a respondent suggested that this reporter call at 8 am on Monday to find out what exactly happened.
“I cannot vividly say what happened, but I suggest you call by 8 tomorrow to confirm what happened. It was logged in by the manager on that shift, who should have explained it better to the management. I just came this morning and heard of what happened, but I don’t yet understand,” he said.
