NTV journalist Larry Madowo has recounted a spooky night encounter with a male stalker at a hotel in Rwanda.
Taking to his weekly #Front Row column in the Daily Nation to narrate the ordeal, Larry recounted how a man who identified himself as Nick called him in the dead of the night last Wednesday.
“I had barely fallen asleep when the bedside phone rang with the anger of a thousand blaring horns that could have woken the dead.”
‘Larry, this is Nick.’ He spoke with the confidence of someone who knew me rather well and if it was odd that he was calling me past 2am, it didn’t register in his tone.”
According to Larry, the man who had called on the hotel phone said: “I want to see you right now.”
Larry then hang up on him but Nick was relentless in his pursuit as he found his way to Larry’s hotel room where he persistently attempted to force the door open.
“About 10 minutes later, there was a knock on my door. If you’re familiar with the consistent rhythm of Sheldon Cooper’s knocking in “The Big Bang Theory”, know that it was nothing like that. Instead of just knocking repeatedly while calling my name at intervals, he was commentating through the whole thing.
His accent said he was Kenyan and the fact that he was truly outside my door implied that he was probably crazy. How did this mysterious character pass two access-controlled doors that required a card to open and end up within, right outside my room?” recounted Larry.
He tried to call the front desk but the phone line was down.
Larry continued: “It grew into full-blown terror when I tried to call the front desk and the phone line was down. I kid you not, all the hotel’s numbers had that busy tone you hear when your connection has been cut off. The man was still trying to open the door but now I could not reach the hotel’s security team.”
According to the security desk, the man had convinced the Radisson Blu Kigali’s front desk that Larry was a friend.
“Turns out he had convinced the Radisson Blu Kigali’s front desk that we were friends. They claimed he had my name and room number on a piece of paper when he approached them from another room in the hotel.
When I hung up on him, he told them I had asked him to come up so they allowed him. It was richly ironic that I was staying in Rwanda’s most protected hotel that week and here I was, fearing for my life. They had only taken a copy of his passport and let him go right ahead. After what seemed like forever, I finally got the hotel on line and they removed the night visitor from my door. I understand he was arrested and investigations are under way,” concluded Larry.
Read the full story: A terrifying night experience in Kigali, ‘Africa’s safest city’
