8 most Dangerous Robbers In The History Of Nigeria (FULL DETAILS)
In the history of Nigeria, there has been a history of crime and criminals who have become folk heroes and legends in themselves. Some of them have had their names entrenched in the history of the country as bandits who almost debilitated the nation but whatever way you look at them, they deserve the roll call of heroes and villains are made. Here are the most notorious criminals Nigerians can never forget.
1. Lawrence Nomanyagbon Anini aka The Law
For those who grew in the 80s, the name Lawrence Nomanyagbon Anini can never be forgotten as one of Nigeria’s most notorious armed robbers who reigned supreme in the old Bendel State, now Edo and Delta.
Anini was finally arrested in a major operation led by Superintendent of Police Kayode Uanreroro, who brought his reign of terror to an end. He was nabbed on December 3, 1986, at No. 26, Oyemwosa Street, opposite Iguodala Primary School, Benin City, in company of six women,following a tip-off by residents of the area. Anini who was confined to a wheelchair throughout his trial following the amputation of one of his legs was sentenced to death by Justice James Omo-Agege of the Benin High Court and was executed on March 29, 1987.
Anini’s Capture
On December 3, 1986, he was caught at a house in Benin City between 2nd and 3rd East Circular Road in the company of a girlfriend. His girlfriend was said to have betrayed him. Anini was shot in the leg, transferred to a military hospital.
History has it that the policeman that shot Anini’s foot didn’t recognise him. They asked him if he was Anini and he denied. The policeman did not believe him and was watching his body movement. Anini was said to attempt to force his way out of the room shoving the policeman blocking his way, that was when he was shot on the foot and he fell to the ground. He was then said to confess to the policeman that shot him, that he was indeed Lawrence Anini.
Several days after he was shot in the leg, one of his legs was amputated.The country’s military leader, Ibrahim Babangida, demanded a speedy trial. Anini was convicted of most of his charges and was executed on March 29, 1987
Anini also known as ‘The Law,’ reigned supreme in the 80s and was so bloody that his matter was even discussed at the State Security Council meeting in the General Ibrahim Babangida’s regime.
2. ‘Doctor’ Ishola Oyenusi
Naturally, ‘Doctor’ Ishola Oyenusi should have taken the top spot on this list going by the fact that he was the first known armed robber in the country. But Anini’s exploits in the underworld took the shine off Oyenusi.
In the history of crime in Nigeria, Oyenusi, was a cold-blooded armed robber who held sway in the early 70s, stands on a very special threshold that none can ever dream of attaining.
Ishola Oyenusi, prevalently known as Doctor Oyenusi, was a famously outfitted burglar who threatened the individuals of Lagos and other neighbouring urban areas during the 1970s.
Ishola Oyenusi and his posse of six were exceptionally talented in grabbing vehicles, looting banks, manufacturing plants, stores, and slaughtering individuals like chickens.
He took the nation by storm shortly after the Civil War ended and before he was executed on Wednesday, September 8, 1971, at the famous Bar Beach show in front of 30,000 watching Nigerians, no one believed that ‘The Doctor’ would be captured, as he was famed for ‘disappearing’ or his body not penetrable by bullets.
In fact, he must have had so much faith in his charms that he smiled all the way to the stake and even as the soldiers aimed their rifles at him and his co-criminals, Oyenusi still radiated an aura of invisibility.
Oyenusi’s Robbery Exploits
Oyenusi began his theft profession by grabbing a vehicle (whose proprietor kicked the bucket all the while) in light of the fact that his (Oyenusi) sweetheart required some cash. It was guaranteed by certain sources that Oyenusi was sentimental.
He sold the vehicle at the cost of N400 and gave the cash to his better half. It was additionally said that Oyenusi was hot-tempered and calm egotistical. During his capture, he roared down on a cop who was guiding him around. He stated, “individuals as you don’t converse with me like that when I’m equipped, I weapon them down!”
Specialist Ishola Oyenusi came into the spotlight after the Nigerian common war ended in 1970. He ransacked banks and individuals in both sunshine and night, and he never let any of his casualties live to see one more day; he killed them all! This earned him the name “Specialist loot and murder”.
At the stature of his horrendous rule, Ishola Oyenusi boasted that “the slug has no force”. He most likely overlooked that he who lives by the blade will definitely bite the dust by the sword. Oyenusi was scandalous to such an extent that he was viewed by certain individuals as the “primary commended equipped burglar in Nigeria”, and after him was Lawrence Anini, Babatunde Folorunsho (Baba oni trim), Shina Rambo, Buraimo Jimoh and others.
Ishola Oyenusi’s Arrest
Be that as it may, nothing keeps going forever, and as the Yoruba aphorism says, ordinary has a place with the criminal while a day has a place with the proprietor.
On the 27th of March, 1971, Oyenusi was grabbed by the police during one of his burglary activities where he and his infamous posse slaughtered a police constable named Mr. Nwi and took $28,000 as at that point. The haze of disgrace drifted above Doctor Ishola Oyenusi as he was cast under the watchful eye of the law and saw as liable at that point condemned to death by terminating crew.
There was an incident after Oyenusi was arrested and handcuffed by a police officer. As the policeman was ordering him around, Oyenusi blasted him and thundered: ‘People like you don’t talk to me like that when I am armed. I gun them down.’
Oyenusi admitted that he was not to kick the bucket alone on the grounds that he didn’t carry out the violations alone.
He regurgitated the names of different individuals from the posse which were as per the following: Joseph Osamedike, Ambrose Nwokobia, Joel Amamieye, Philip Ogbolumain, Ademola Adegbitan, and Stephen Ndubuokwu.
In those days, open execution was the thing to get done, so when Oyenusi was guided to the mainstream Bar Beach in Lagos where he was to be executed, more than 30,000 Nigerians were cheerfully and enthusiastically standing by to see the man who had threatened them get perplexed by hot projectiles. It was said that some government workers even carried a final resting place to the execution ground to deride the once strong looter boss who was present only a substitute whose breath would be depleted at whatever second.
Ishola Oyenusi’s execution
Trucks conveying Oyenusi and his agents showed up at the execution ground around 10:am. Specialist Oyenusi, his posse individuals, and one other criminal got down gradually.
Individuals scoffed and booed them, particularly Oyenusi who they had truly trooped out to watch bite the dust. Oyenusi wore a dull long-sleeve shirt and had his hands bound behind him.
He was perspiring lavishly yet figured out how to grin right to the stakes. He continued grinning, grinning, and grinning however could at present not conceal the desolation and fear composed strikingly all over.
Few moments before he was shot, Oyenusi told writers that he would not have wandered into furnished theft if his folks were fit for sending him to optional school.
He additionally said, “I am biting the dust for the offense I have submitted”. Oyenusi and different lawbreakers were secured to the stakes. The fighters lined before them and pointed their ever prepared weapons. A portion of the lawbreakers hollered their final expressions of dissent at the cameras. At that point, a boisterous voice let out “fire”! Oyenusi and other hoodlums’ bodies were splashed with shots.
That was the dramatic finish of Ishola Oyenusi who lived by the projectiles and kicked the bucket by the slugs. The execution of Doctor Ishola Oyenusi sent the lanes of Lagos abandoned around evening time. Families bolted themselves behind entryways for the dread that a portion of Oyenusi’s young men may fight back.
This dread kept going long that even in 1977, the veteran film director, Eddie Ugbomah, called for entertainers to assume the job of Oyenusi in a film he was going to create named “The Rise and Fall of Dr. Oyenusi”, however, no on-screen character was courageous enough to step forward to assume the job.
They all expected that Oyenusi’s young men may give them pepper. Eddie Ugbomah had no way out than to assume the job of Oyenusi himself. In the film, he uncovered the insider facts of top Nigerian authorities and military men backing Oyenusi and his pack by giving them cash and weapons.
True to form, Eddie Ugbomah was compromised, and later, his store was plundered. He was advised in a letter to quit shooting the film and everything would come back to him. In any case, Eddie Ugbomah demonstrated not to be a weakling by in the long run discharging the film in 1977.
Lately, a Nollywood actor, Odunlade Adekola, likewise discharged a film (Oyenusi) enumerating the life of Ishola Oyenusi, the most infamous Nigerian furnished looter.
The name Ishola Oyenusi will everlastingly be recalled throughout the entire existence of wrongdoing in Nigeria.
3. Abiodun Egunjobi, alias Godogodo
He was the modern day version of Lawrence Anini. The one-eyed monster was one of the deadliest armed robbers Nigeria ever had. The 36-years-old Godogodo rose from being a slum boy to the leader of a gang that defied all reasons, struck with precision, killed without mercy and terrorized Lagos and the south-west with reckless abandon.
Before his arrest on August 1, 2013, Godogodo gave the Lagos State Police Command so much headache for 14 years, so much so that on the day he was arrested, the command erupted in joy: at least its men would be safe from his guns. In fact, he was at a time, on the top of the Most Wanted list of the Command with several Police Commissioners assigning the toughest of cops on his trail. Godogodo began his voyage into the deadly world of crime after spending seven years in prison for what he considered a minor offence. As a scrap dealer in the slum of Gatankowa, Abule-Egba, he was involved in a fight and the police arrested him. With no one to bail him out, Godogodo was sent to jail and in his mind, he believed his going to prison was an injustice and blamed the police for it. While in prison, he became acquainted with more deadly armed robbers and formed an alliance with them and took the time to understudy them. When he finally left prison, he decided that he was going to deal with the police for sending him to prison for seven years.
The Lagos State Police Command led by the then Commissioner, Umar Manko, mandated the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), led by Superintendent of Police, Abba Kyari, to bring an end to the reign of Abbey Godogodo and that began intensive investigations which led to the capitulation of his empire. Manko was given direct orders by the then Inspector General of Police to make sure the Godogodo phenomenon was quashed at all cost.
4. Okwudili Ndiwe aka Derico
Okwudili Ndiwe, alias Derico Nwamama, was also one of the deadliest armed robbers to have come out of the Nigeria. In the early 2000s, the 22-year-old Derico Nwamama was probably the King of the Underworld in the Eastern parts of the country; a clear replication of the likes of Lawrence Anini and Ishola Oyenusi. Derico had risen from a street urchin and pick pocket to a dreaded crime king and the mere mention of his name sent shivers down the spines of traders and residents of Onitsha, the commercial capital of Anambra State, and other parts of the east. The traders could not display their wares with peace while many slept with one eye open. Derico sacked commercial banks in Onitsha, carting away millions of Naira.
Travelers who had to pass through the state held their breaths, expecting the hoodlum to strike at any time. The then Governor of the state, Chinwoke Mbadinuju, became an old man over night with worries on how to handle the menace of Derico. He was described as the personification of terror. From Nnewi to Nkpor, from the villages in Umuleri to towns in Ihiala, the old and young were terrified at the mere whisper of Derico Nwamama. At that time, he was said to be invisible and could not be arrested.
The dreaded Bakassi Boys went on a manhunt for the man known to kill without batting an eyelid. With the police and other security forces unable to bring Derico Nwamama and his terror regime to a close, the onus fell on the Bakassi Boys, the militant wing of the Anambra Vigilante Services (AVS), a local vigilante group set up to curb crime and criminality in the South East.
The group were then at the forefront of the hunt and capture of Derico Nwamama and on Tuesday, July 3, 2001, the hitherto invisible criminal was nabbed on his way to Onitsha from Agbor, ostensibly on one of his crime spree. On July 9, 2001, six days after Derico was captured at the Niger Bridge, the Bakassi Boys did to him what many had earlier predicted. Chanting war songs, they drove in their convoy around the town and ended at the Ochanja Market Junction along the popular Upper Iweka Road in Onitsha.
Derico was dragged out from the bus, looking gaunt and severely beaten, a trademark of the vigilante group. His body bore cuts and gashes, a testament to what he must have gone through in their hands. He must also have known that the day of reckoning has come. He was in obvious pains but no one seemed to care.
Still chanting war songs and egged on by the enchanted crowd, one of the commanders of the Bakassi Boys named Okpompi, addressed the crowd, telling them they were in the state not for politics but to fight crime. He handed over the microphone to the now trembling Derico who, like a cornered fox, began begging for his life to be spared.
He made feeble attempts at declaring his innocence: “My name is Oddy, alias Derico, alias Nwa Mama. I appeal to you the people of Anambra State, please don’t kill me, I don’t like evil. It was when I killed Chiejina that people thought I am a strong guy, you know. I trust Bakassi Boys. They are strong. Please, mercy for me. Nobody can identify me as having robbed him. People just believe that I am a strong guy.”
What was to follow remains one of the most macabre displays of public executions in Nigeria. With the speed of a guillotine, a cutlass handled in the strong arm of one of the Bakassi Boys flew and came down with an unforgiving thud, landing on Derico’s slim neck. In a flash, Derico was beheaded.
His severed head rolled on the floor before the crowd while his convulsing body collapsed on the ground, with bright-red blood gushing from his carotid arteries.
Before he became a man of God and the Director-General of Prison Rehabilitation Mission International (PREMI), and the Presiding Bishop of Christ Vessel of Grace Church, Bishop Kayode Williams was one of Nigeria most notorious armed robbers.
He was a member of the Ishola Oyenusi gang who stood out when his boss was captured. He was known to be a dreaded robber who wasted no time in killing his victims. During a confession years ago, Bishop Willams narrated how he pounded little babies and used them for spiritual fortification. play He was converted to Christianity while serving a 10-year jail term and since then, he has not looked back in preaching to prisoners and trying all he can to rehabilitate them.
Legend has it that Monday Osunbor was the main man behind the dreaded Lawrence Anini gang. He was known as the executioner and sharp shooter. Though not much was known of him during the Anini trial as his leader took the shine off him,it was gathered that he was a short-tempered stammerer who did not hesitate in killing their victims. He was executed alongside Anini in 1987.
7. Shina Rambo
The name Shina Rambo has refused to go away from the consciousness of Nigerians who either witnessed his crime spree or were unfortunate to live in that era.
The Abeokuta, Ogun State-born Rambo was a terror in the 90s and the brain behind many crimes in the Western parts of the country where he robbed and killed with impunity. He was so feared even by the police that many thought he was invisible as he was thought to disappear anytime the police closed in on him. It is believed that the policemen who killed him did not even know that it was Shina Rambo.
He was said to be on his way to Lanrewaju Motors to buy a Pathfinder SUV when he was apprehended by the police on the Ojota New Garage Long Bridge. Rambo was not the one driving when the police stopped him and his gang, they discovered a lot of money in a cartoon in the trunk of the Datsun car.
When they started questioning him on the possession of such huge an amount, an argument ensued and he attempted to disarm one of the policemen. It was one of the policemen at the other side of the road who shot Rambo down. It was said that it was easy to shoot him because he was not with his charms since he was not going for an operation. However, another account has it that the person killed was not the real Shina Rambo as another ex-bandit who claimed to be the real Rambo, is now a man of God.
We have seen two confessions of men that claim to be Shina Rambo. They actually look like the same person, but have given different names and their stories are alike. You can read the CHILLING CONFESSIONS OF SHINA RAMBO HERE
The story might make sense, because somewhere in one of the confessions of the clergy Shina Rambo, he is quoted as saying “At the end of the whole exercise, I possessed a total of 901 power images that can be used to cajole or disappear at a scene of a crime and project the image of another person. So, if I was killed at a particular point, I had the powers to resurface in another place in another form,”
Below is an extract from the post on Shina Rambo’s confession
Shina was already indoctrinated into the underworld by his father at a tender age of 7 without him knowing it, as he would sit in front of his son, to dismantle and assemble all sorts of weapons and then polishing them in preparation for an operation. This went on for so long till one day, little Shina, entered into his father’s room while he had stepped into the toilet, and saw a dismembered gun on the floor. He sat down in front of it, and bit by bit, he had assembled it effortlessly in no time at all. His father came out of the toilet, and saw his son, with a loaded gun in his hands. Shina flashed back and said,
“That day my father was so disappointed, that he wanted to kill me, he grabbed the gun from my hand and shot straight at me, but I miraculously escaped out of the room. Then he waited for me to be less alert at night he came to my room with a machete and tried to behead me, but once again, I escaped, but the machete caught my left leg. (rolled up his trouser to show us the large scar, that made everyone sighed in pity). It cut me so deep I thought I was never going to walk again. That day I knew I had graduated, all that was left was to pull the trigger, and I was so eager.”
Shina Rambo became so notorious in no time, and was hell bent on succeeding in his career as an armed robber, that he went through any length to secure spiritual powers for fortification. To the extent of pounding over 27 live new born babies in the mortar with a pestle, cutting off about 100 human tongues and cooking them to eat, visiting the spiritual river called river of life in Ogoja, Cross Rivers State, living in an Iroko tree for days, and sleeping in the cemetery.
He was given a spiritual wife who always followed him for any operation, she dressed like an Alhaja, people thought she was human, but she was a spirit, that was why they never saw her face. He said she was his personal driver, that she could drive from Nigeria to Cotonou, in the speed of light.
Hear him. ”I was involved in so many rituals, that I can’t start naming them now, I was so powerful, I went underground, inside trees that looked like a city, a lot of beautiful houses inside the tree, I had my own too, I went into a river called River of life in Ogoja, where a lot of politicians and wealthy men used to come. I had several personalities, I could change my form whenever I wanted to, that’s why the police were busy killing innocent people, and thought they were killing Shina Rambo. The 9 herbalists that gave me that power, I became stronger than them, one day I went to their shrines, and killed all of them, so that they don’t reveal my secrets. I had too many powers; my spiritual wife could drive any car in this world or out of it, no police vehicle, or anyone for that matter, could ever chase and catch me during an operation. She was out of this world, and when she had completed her operation, they took her away from me. I could give anything to get powers, and the elders knew, so they also gave me anything I wanted. I once beheaded hundred men, and gave them the heads fresh, they were so happy with me that they made me invincible. No matter the kind of bullet you shot at me, it was just like pure water on my body. I could give anything to get power, but of all the things I did to get power, the one that still breaks my heart the most, is sleeping with my mother. My father is dead now, but my mother is still alive, and she lives with me she is 85 years old, whenever I set my eyes on her, I just start crying. I can`t bear it.”
Shina Rambo was a raging terror, he was infallibly dangerous, the police dreaded him, both in Nigeria, and Benin Republic, his place of interest for business. He would go to police stations, in broad daylight and kill every policeman there, drive to check points and
open fire on every policeman on duty, he didn’t like the police at all, and was never afraid of them, he operated in broad day light armed to the teeth looking like Johny Rambo, in the popular Sylvester Stalone movie, “First Blood”. He once robbed 40 exotic cars in one day and drove all of them in a convoy, from Lagos to Cotonou, unstopped.
He was powerful; he was wealthy, and impenetrable. He was a tin god, apparently belched from the very arroyo hell, we all dreaded him. He had a wife and three children, but he lost all of them in one day during a bloody police raid whilst he was away on operation. His wife was his stabilizing factor his life changed afterwards.
He says “my wife was everything to me, I was forbidden by the elders to sleep with any other woman apart from her, I could gather about 50 women around me in a hotel, and they will just be playing with me, we would smoke, drink, and sniff cocaine, I will give them money but I will never sleep with them. I will go back home to my wife and sleep with her. That was why the police never caught me. She knew my job, she knew what I was, I never left them alone at night, I operated in the day time and go back home to my family at night. I had everything, I was very wealthy, I once spent 50 million naira in a day. I did it a lot, there was one day that we were coming from an operation and it seemed as if my powers were going to fail me, the
police and the army were almost closing in on us, so we had to drive into a crowd and threw millions of naira in the air, there was commotion, everybody was busy picking naira notes even the police, until we escaped. I was too rich, but anything the devil gives you
never lasts, he will collect more from you, it’s only the devil that will give you Fila, (cap) and ask for Iro and Buba.(wrapper and top). I lost everything, all the money, my family; I was so powerful the police couldn’t catch me but I lost it all. I had to surrender myself to the police, and I was arrested and jailed for 11 years. When I was serving my jail term in Agodi prisons, Ibadan, Prophet T.O Obadare came visiting, and having been encouraged several times by the Christian brothers and sisters in the prison to give my life to Christ, he prayed for me and converted me, and changed my name to Oluwanifemi, and it was so miraculous, the next day I woke up and started
speaking in tongues. It was during the time of President Olusegun Obasanjo, that we were granted freedom.”
See More on Shina Rambo HERE
8. Isiaka Busari aka Mighty Joe
Shortly after the notorious kingpin of armed robbery in Nigeria, Ishola Oyenusi was executed, his second in command, Isiaka Busari, better known as Mighty Joe, took over the scene and and became the defacto king of the underground. Nigeria was still coming out of the pangs of the civil war and with the death of Oyenusi, they thought the era of violent crimes had been nipped in the bud but little did they know that another hoodlum would spring up and become deadlier. In Mighty Joe’s gang were ex-soldiers who were demobilized and with their know how in the handling of guns and other deadly weapons, they held the nation, particularly the South West, to ransom, robbing and killing with reckless abandon. Mighty Joe was even deadlier than Oyenusi and was known to operate at anytime he felt like and taking a human’s life was nothing to him. For many years, he constituted himself a big terror to the people of Lagos, the then Federal Capital, especially around Mushin where he lived and practiced his trade. He strode the hemisphere like a colossus from 1971 when his boss was killed, till 1973 when he was nabbed after robbing a hotel bar attendant, Michael Osayunana, of the sum of ₦10.