Lawrence Nomanyag­bon Anini, Nigeria’s most notorious armed robber, was born some­time in 1960. He terrorised 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. He op­erated along with his lieutenant, Monday Osunbor, and others. However, one striking feature in the Anini reign of terror was police complicity. 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 ‘Ovbigbo’, was born in a village about 20 miles from Be­nin City. He migrated to Benin at an early age, learned to drive and became a skilled taxi driver within a 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 far north and east of Benin.


The complicity of the police is believed to have enhanced Anini’s reign of terror in 1986. Early that year, 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. But although the amount sto­len was seen as chicken feed, they left the scene with a trail of blood. Many persons were killed.

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.

Read more on http://thesportnewsportal..com/2014/12/anini-law-reign-of-armed-robber.html

Those useless "leaders" are bigger thieves.