29th MARCH 1987 HAS LAWRENCE ANINI: THE
TRUE STORY OF ONE OF NIGERIA’S MOST
NOTORIOUS ARMED ROBBERS!
...ONLY ELDERS LIKE ME WILL REMEMBER
THIS STORY, KIDS PLEASE READ TILL THE
END!!!... Lolz
Indeed, Nigeria has recorded only two types of
armed robbers: Lawrence Anini and Others.
No armed robber in the history of this Country
has ever held the entire country to ransom as
Anini.
In fact, his reign was so bloody that he was even
discussed at the State Security Council meeting.
THIS IS HIS STORY:
Lawrence Nomanyagbon Anini was born in a
village about 20 miles from Benin City in present-
day Edo State.
Anini was an only son of his Evbueisi-born
mother, he had two sisters. His father died when
he was still a young boy.
Anini was brought to Benin where he was
admitted at the Oza Primary School but from a
young age, he started manifesting the signs of
truancy.
He struggled to finish his primary school then
entered the Igiedumu Secondary School. He did
not spend more than three years when he
dropped out of school, preferring to be an
apprentice at a local mechanic workshop. That
was around 1976.
Anini later migrated to Benin, learned to drive
and became a skilled taxi driver(Legend has it
that he was the best driver created by the
Almighty).
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 dived into the criminal business in the
city and soon became a driver and transporter for
gangs, criminal godfathers and thieves.
Later on, he decided to create his own gang
which included:
1. Monday Osunbor (The Deadliest Man That
Ever Lived),
2. Friday Ofege,
3. Henry Ekponwan,
4. Eweka and
5. Alhaji zed zed or Zegezege who was never
captured.
They started out as car hijackers, bus robbers
and bank thieves.
Gradually, Anini and his gang extended their
criminal acts all over Benin City.
THE DEADLY ANINI’S REIGN OF TERROR:
Following the sudden overthrow of the politicians
in the early 1980s and banning of politics in 1984
by the Buhari regime, Anini discovered that
armed robbery was far more lucrative and that
was when he formed his gang...
In early 1986, two members of his gang were
tried and prosecuted against 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, Anini and his gang
masterminded a fatal bank robbery 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 1986, the Anini team
struck at First Bank, Sabongida-Ora, where they
carted away N2,000(big money back then). He
killed many people that day.
On September 6, 1986, 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 City, 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, the Anini 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
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,
and nearly yanked off his nose in a hail of
bullets. The police boss survived the attacks with
serious injuries. Earlier that day also, the Anini
men had gunned down a police man within the
city
"The Law", as he was nicknamed, during an
operation that went bad had to escape from the
police by driving in reverse from Agbor (Delta
State) to Benin City (Edo State). Indeed, he was
a real life "James Bond-007".
Also, on October 21 of same year, the Anini
robbery gang terminated the life of a Benin-
based medical doctor, A.O Emojeve when they
gunned him down along Textile Mill Road, in
Benin.
Not done, Anini and gang went and robbed the
Agbor branch of African Continental Bank and
carted away about N46, 000. A day after the
operation, Anini, The Law, turned to a ‘Father
Christmas’ as he strew wads of naira notes on
the ground for free pick by market men and
women at a village near Benin. Anini’s image
thus loomed larger than life, he spearheaded a
four-month reign of terror between August and
December 1986.
Anini also reportedly wrote numerous letters to
media houses using political tones of Robin
Hood-like words, 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,
combing every part of Bendel State(Now Delta
and Edo States) 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”?’.
THE D-DAY: DAY OF RECKONING!!!
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.”
(AT THIS POINT, PLEASE TAKE A CHILLED
BOTTLE OF WATER BEFORE YOU CONTINUE
READING)
Anini 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. That was after Monday Osunbor was
also captured. 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
terrorized 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.
THE ROLE OF THE POLICE IN ANINI’S EXPLOITS
Shortly after the arrest of Anini and his gang
(excluding Alhaji zed zed or Zegezege who was
never captured, he may still be alive living a
normal life till date), the dare-devil robbers began
to cry and confess, revealing the 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 logistic 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; being how he invested the loots he obtained
from men of the underworld
THE END OF ANINI AND HIS GANG
Due to amputation of his leg, 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, off
Sapele Road in Benin City.
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 would be of un-blessed memory.
Few people if ever, would give the name to their
children.” Their execution took place on March
29, 1987.
