HISTORY ON THURSDAYS WITH COLLYBRIGHT
ANINI: THE NIGERIAN ROBIN HOOD
Just few number of us would have heard of him. His name is Lawrence
Nomanyagbon Anini, Nigeria’s most notorious armed robber, who was born
sometime in 1960.
He terrorized the old Bendel State, especially its capital, Benin City in the 1980s. By 1986, his robbery exploits had reached such a terrible level that it became a national issue.
Here are facts and story about him...
He operated along with his lieutenant, Monday Osunbor, and others.
However, one striking feature in the Anini reign of terror was police
confederacy. It was soon discovered that the Anini gang had insiders
within the Police hierarchy. George Iyamu, a Deputy Superintendent of
Police, was their arrowhead.
Anini, dreadfully called ‘the law’ or ‘ovbi’, was born in a
village close to Benin City. He migrated to Benin at an early age,
learned to drive and became a skilled taxi driver within few years. He
became known in Benin motor parks as a man who could control the varied
competing interests among motor park touts and operators.
He later took to criminal acts in the city and soon became a driver and
transporter for gangs, criminal godfathers and thieves. Soon after, he
decided to create his own gang. They started out as car hijackers, bus
robbers and bank thieves. Gradually, he extended his criminal acts to
other towns and cities in Benin.
In early 1986, two members of his gang were prosecuted over an earlier
under-the-table ‘agreement’ with the Police to destroy evidence against
the gang members.
The incident, and Anini’s view of Police betrayal, is believed to have
spurred retaliatory actions by Anini. In August, 1986, a bank robbery
linked to Anini was reported in which a police officer and others were
killed. That same month, two officers on duty were shot at a barricade
while trying to stop Anini’s car. During a span of three months, he was
known to have killed nine police officers.
In an operation in August of 1986, the Anini team struck at First Bank,
Sabongida-Ora, where they carted away N2,000. Although the amount stolen
was seen as chicken feed, they left the scene with a trail of blood as
many oxen were gored in the process.
On September 6, same year, the Anini gang snatched a Peugeot 504 car
from Albert Otoe, the driver of an Assistant Inspector General of
Police, Christopher Omeben. In snatching the car, they killed the driver
and went to hide his corpse somewhere. It was not until three months
later that the skeleton of the driver was spotted 16 kilometers away
from Benin, along the Benin-Agbor highway. A day after this attack,
Anini, operating in a Passat car believed to have been stolen, also
effected the snatching of another Peugeot 504 car near the former FEDECO
office, in Benin.
Two days after, Anini’s men killed two policemen in Orhiowon Local
Government of the state. Still in that month, three different robbery
attacks, all pointing to Anini’s involvement, took place. They include
the murder of Frank Unoarumi, a former employee of the Nigerian Observer
newspapers; the killing of Mrs. Remi Sobanjo, a chartered accountant,
and the stealing of the Mercedes Benz car in Benin, of the Ughelli
monarch, the Ovie.
Before September 1986 drew to a close, Anini, now an elusive dread,
struck at a gas station along Wire Road, Benin, where he stole a
substantial part of the day’s sales. He shot the Station’s attendant and
gleefully started spraying his booty along the road for people to pick.
The height of Anini’s exploits, however, took place on October 1, 1986,
the Independence Day when the state’s Commissioner of Police, Casmir
Igbokwe was ambushed by the gang in Benin, followed by a hail of
bullets. The police boss survived the attack with serious injuries.
Earlier that day also, the Anini men had gunned down a police man within
the city.
Also, on October 21 of same year, the Anini gang terminated the life of a Benin-based medical doctor, A.O Emojeve. They gunned him down along Textile Mill Road, in Benin. Not done, Anini and his gang went and robbed the Agbor branch of the African Continental Bank and carted away about N46,000. A day after the operation, Anini turned to a ‘Father Christmas’ as he threw wads of naira on the ground for market men and women to pick at a village near Benin.
Anini’s image thus loomed larger than life, dwarfing those of Ishola
Oyenusi, the king of robbers in the 1970s and Youpelle Dakuro, the army
deserter who masterminded the most vicious daylight robbery in Lagos in
1978, in which two policemen were killed. Anini spear-headed a
four-month reign of terror between August and December 1986. He also
reportedly wrote numerous letters to media houses using political tones
of Robin Hood to describe his criminal acts.
Worried by the seeming elusiveness of Anini and his gang members, the
military President, General Ibrahim Babangida then ordered a massive
manhunt for the kingpin and his fellow robbers. The police thus went
after them; combed every part of Bendel State where they were reportedly
operating and living. The whole nation was gripped with fear of the
robbers and their daredevil exploits.
However, Police manhunt failed to stop their activities; the more they
were hunted, the more intensified their activities became. Some of the
locals in the area even began to tell stories of their invincibility and
for a while, it felt like they were never going to be caught.
However, at the conclusion of a meeting of the Armed Forces Ruling
Council in October 1986, General Babangida turned to the
Inspector-General of Police, Etim Inyang, and asked, ‘My friend, where
is Anini?’. At about this time, Nigerian newspapers and journals were
also publishing various reports and editorials on the ‘Anini Challenge’,
the ‘Anini Saga’, the ‘Anini Factor’, ‘Lawrence Anini – the Man, the
Myth’, ‘Anini, Jack the Ripper’, and ‘Lawrence Anini: A Robin Hood in
Bendel’. The Guardian asked, emphatically, in one of its reports: ‘Will
they ever find Anini, “The Law”?’
His arrest...
Finally, it took the courage of Superintendent of Police, Kayode
Uanreroro to bring the Anini reign of terror to an end. On December 3,
1986, Uanreroro caught Anini at No 26, Oyemwosa Street, opposite
Iguodala Primary School, Benin City, in company with six women. Acting
on a tip-off from the locals, the policeman went straight to the house
where Anini was hiding and apprehended him with very little resistance.
Uanreroro led a crack 10-man team to the house, knocked on the door of
the room, and Anini himself, clad in underpants, opened the door. “Where
is Anini,” the police officer quickly enquired. Dazed as he was caught
off guard and having no escape route, Anini all the same tried to be
smart. “Oh, Anini is under the bed in the inner room”. As he said it, he
made some moves to walk past Uanreroro and his team. In the process, he
shoved and head-butted the police officer but it was an exercise in
futility.
Uanreroro promptly reached for his gun, stepped hard on Anini’s right
toes and shot at his left ankle. Anini surged forward but the policemen
took hold of him and put him in a sitting position. They then pumped
more bullets into his shot leg and almost severed the ankle from his
entire leg. Already, anguished by the excruciating pains, the policemen
asked him, “Are you Anini?” And he replied, “My brother, I won’t deceive
you; I won’t tell you lie, I’m Anini.” He was from there taken to the
police command headquarters where the state’s Police Commissioner, Parry
Osayande, was waiting. While in the police net, Anini who had poor
command of English and could only communicate in pidgin, made a whole
lot of revelations. He disclosed, for instance that Osunbor, who had
been arrested earlier, was his deputy, saying that Osunbor actually
shot and wounded the former police boss of the state, Akagbosu Anini was shot in the leg, transferred to a military hospital, and had one of his legs amputated.
When Anini’s hideout was searched, police recovered assorted charms,
including the one he usually wore around his waist during “operations”.
It was instructive that after Anini was captured and dispossessed of his
charms, the man who terrorised a whole state and who was supposed to be
fearless suddenly became remorseful, making confessions. This was
against public expectation of a daredevil hoodlum who would remain
defiant to the very end.
Shortly after the arrest of Anini and co, the dare-devil robbers began
to revealthe roles played by key police officers and men, in the aiding
and abetting of criminals in Bendel State and the entire country. Anini
particularly revealed that Iyamu, who was the most senior police
officer shielding the robbers, would reveal police secrets to them and
then, give them logistical supports such as arms, to carry out robbery
operations. He further revealed that Iyamu, after each operation, would
join them in sharing the loot. It was further exposed how Iyamu planned
to kill Christopher Omeben, an Assistant Inspector-General of Police
in charge of Intelligence and Investigation. But Iyamu was later to be
disappointed as the assailants dispatched to eliminate Omeben were only
able to kill his driver, Otue, a sergeant.
Iyamu, whom the robbers fondly referred to as ‘Baba’, reportedly had choice buildings in Benin City; proof of how he invested the loot he obtained from men of the underworld. Anini was confined to a wheelchair throughout his trial. Iyamu, on his part, denied ever knowing and collaborating with Anini, but Anini The Law furiously retorted, “You are a shameless liar!” Anini had accused him before Justice James Omo-Agege in the High Court of Justice. Of the 10 police officers Anini implicated, five were convicted. The robbery suspects, including Iyamu, were sentenced to death. But in passing his judgement, Justice Omo-Agege remarked, “Anini will forever be remembered in the history of crime in this country, but it will be of unblessed memory. Few people, if ever, will give the name to their children"
Iyamu, whom the robbers fondly referred to as ‘Baba’, reportedly had choice buildings in Benin City; proof of how he invested the loot he obtained from men of the underworld. Anini was confined to a wheelchair throughout his trial. Iyamu, on his part, denied ever knowing and collaborating with Anini, but Anini The Law furiously retorted, “You are a shameless liar!” Anini had accused him before Justice James Omo-Agege in the High Court of Justice. Of the 10 police officers Anini implicated, five were convicted. The robbery suspects, including Iyamu, were sentenced to death. But in passing his judgement, Justice Omo-Agege remarked, “Anini will forever be remembered in the history of crime in this country, but it will be of unblessed memory. Few people, if ever, will give the name to their children"
Their execution took place in March 1987.
Source: Mccollybright.blogspot.com.ng
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