inufele2:

Lie! No be bullet dem use tear im leg before they arrest am?

ba7man: The Legend of Anini.....When I was young, I heard he drove from sapele to Benin with reverse. That must have been a gross exaggeration.

bokohalal: Journalist: 'can you vanish?
Anini:' I fit vanish na im I still dey here?'

Billyonaire: And so will Boko Haram end, someday.

ba7man: The Legend of Anini.....When I was young, I heard he drove from sapele to Benin with reverse. That must have been a gross exaggeration.

Sirniyeh: In 1987, I was in FORM 2 and I sincerely know the story of Anini and Shina Rambow, the two fiery international robbers Nigeria's condition bred.
What led to Anini's capture was as a nemesis of betrayal! The police insider betrayed Anini and leaked the secret of how Anini could be captured. He downloaded the whole information about Anini, how womanising he was and how he used to remove all charms when going out without operation. If not no one could capture him because he used to vanish when face with tough challenges.
Police deployed 10 female CID to the town of Benin, especially the hotel he used to patronise. That was how they could capture him. He wanted to jump from window when he was shot. On the day of execution, six Army faced him on the firing square but all their bullets were not penetrating, until he voluntarily ordered them to cut off his left toe before they could kill him. The JUJU worked for him, confirmed

Mogidi:
Check out the Anini movie on Youtube and its one of the best film ever produced in Nigeria. The actors of Anini the movie should be rewarded with a Nigerian Oscar.

Sirniyeh:
In 1987, I was in FORM 2 and I sincerely know the story of Anini and Shina Rambow, the two fiery international robbers Nigeria's condition bred.
What led to Anini's capture was as a nemesis of betrayal! The police insider betrayed Anini and leaked the secret of how Anini could be captured. He downloaded the whole information about Anini, how womanising he was and how he used to remove all charms when going out without operation. If not no one could capture him because he used to vanish when face with tough challenges.
Police deployed 10 female CID to the town of Benin, especially the hotel he used to patronise. That was how they could capture him. He wanted to jump from window when he was shot. On the day of execution, six Army faced him on the firing square but all their bullets were not penetrating, until he voluntarily ordered them to cut off his left toe before they could kill him. The JUJU worked for him, confirmed

nurus:
A good history lesson about Lawrence 'the Law' Anini, alias Ovbigbo, the most Notorious armed robber in Nigeria's history! Please Read for your pleasure to refreshing your memory..

How notorious robbery kingpin, Lawrence Anini terrorised Benin


Lawrence Nomanyagbon Anini, Nigeria’s acclaimed most notorious armed robber, was born sometimes in 1960. He terrorised the old Bendel State, especially its capital, Benin City in the 1980s, but in 1986, his robbery exploits reached a terrific 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 the police complicity. It was soon discovered that the Anini gang had insiders within the police hierarchy of which 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 in a few years. He became known in Benin motor parks as a man who could control the varied competing interest among motor park touts and operators. He later resorted to criminal acts 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 and 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 triggered Anini’s reign of terror in 1986. 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, a fatal 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.

Anini’s exploits

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.

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, now steaming hot and 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, 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

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, 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 thus spear-headed 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.

My friend, where is Anini?

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 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. 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 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.

Revelations on Iyamu, others

Shortly after the arrest of Anini and co, the dare-devil robbers began to squeal, revealing the roles played by key police officers and men, in the aid ing 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

Trial and execution

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 unblessed memory. Few people if ever, would give the name to their children.” Their execution took place on March 29, 1987.

seleroms2:
He gave six conditions that must be met “for peace to return to police in
Bendel.’’
‘They are to put a stop to the persecution of innocent armed robbers; a stop to police collusion with NURTW (Nigerian Union of Road Transport Workers) and Ogboni cult members; non-harassment by the police of market women returning from village market; abolition of the collection of 5Ok - N5 (by Highway Patron); equal treatment for everybody; and fair treatment for all legitimate drivers by the police.’’
Of course, Anini had an eye on the public for sympathy and support and he thought that his ‘manifesto’ would win for him this, but his chief enemy was time and the police. The police had said they would do everything to get Anini into the cooler. The force quickly replaced Akagbozu, the hospitalized commissioner of police, with Parry Osayande who until then was the Benue State police commissioner. On arrival, the Governor, John Mark Inienger, gave a million naira to the police so that fund would not be the hindrance in the Anini project. And on Wednesday, 15 October 1986, Muhamadu Gambo was appointed the Inspector General of police. With this, the police seemed set to nail the most wanted criminal of the time.
But when the end of his bloody war on the police and people in Bendel State came, Lawrence Anini was a vulnerable man. His gang, the most notorious and feared in the gory history of violent crime in Nigeria was decimated. The frequency of his spine-chilling mayhem had become periodic violent assaults. He, too, must have known the end was near.
It eventually happened. It was a Wednesday, 3 December, 1986. Lawrence Nomayanukpon Anini, a.k.a. “The Law,” Ovbigbo, ended his bloody career in a style that showed graphically that all men are mortal. “I am Anini”, he told policemen in a voice which betrayed a pathological fear of death. “Please, take me to the hospital.” His legs had been perforated by police guns.
As blood gushed out of his shattered left ankle and the badly fractured right
leg, Anini was overcome by fear induced by the acute awareness that only an immediate intervention by man’s modem medical “magic” could save him. The man whose disdain for civilized society and all it represents, and who relied heavily on juju, was willing and ready to seek help from anywhere.
When the police came for him in the afternoon, Anini was, as usual, having a good time with six girls whom the Bendel police boss, Parry Osayande - the man who meticulously plotted his downfall- described as always behind the scenes of crimes’’. He was startled- a clear indication that his uncanny sense of timing and cunning had deserted him. He attempted to flee. But this time, the police were prepared. They rained bulltets on him, concentrating their shots on his left ankle to ensure he would have no chance of “vanishing”.
His disappearance or so-called miraculous escapes from so many scenes of bloody shoot-outs with the police had become legendary. Along with the myth of his callous exploits, the legend was finally and, like his left ankle, shattered.
The police assault, carried out by a 10-man team from the mobile unit and led by Chief Superintendent Kayode Uanreroro, was precise to the finest details. At about 1pm, an informant got wind of Anini’s presence at a house No. 26 Oyemwonsa Street, opposite Iguodala primary school on Murtala Muhammed Way, Benin City. He went to the police command to relate the news.
The pblice reaction was methodical. They wanted to be sure of the information. Misinformation about Anini had led them astray before, earning them public ridicule.
Osayande, who had been in charge of the state police command since October 1 when his predecessor, Casmir Akagboso, was fatally wounded by Anini’s hoodlums, dispatched the informant and sent a woman (disguised as a daughter of the soil) to confirm the information. Fate seemed to have played tricks on Anini; he was still there with his bevy of delectable girls.
As soon as the confirmation was in, the police swung into action. Uanreroro, whom Osayande described as “brave and energetic”, led his crack 10-man team to the area at 2pm and surrounded the house, a nondescript affair with a coat of faded yellow paint. Uanreroro knocked on the door of the room and Anini himself, who had only his underpants on, opened it. “where is Anini?’’ the police officer demanded.
Confronted by the real law, Anini “The Law” knew instantly that he was in serious trouble especially given his near utter state of UnCloth and the cut-off of the only route of escape by Uanreroro. His “vanishing” power must have failed him, but his brain was not “dead” yet.
Anini tried to outwit Uanreroro. He told him that Anini “is under the bed in the inner room,” and attempted at the same time to force his way past Uanreroro. He shoved and head-butted Uanréraro but the police offlcer, who knew his life was on the line, would not budge. Uanreroro reached for his gun, stepped hard on Anini’s right toes and shot at his left ankle. The Bendel king of the underworld staggered forward..
Assisted by some of his men who had moved into the room, Uanreroro grabbed him and placed him in a sitting position. And then, Anini was given a bitter, painful taste of his own medicine. Uanreroro pumped more bullets into the damaged ankle, almost severing it from the leg. This was done to ensure that he was completely incapacitated.
The shock and concentrated impact of the bullets burying themselves in the ankle triggered an involuntary movement in Anini’s body and he jerked forward and rolled on the floor, already red with his blood. He was asked if he was Anini. His anguished reply was: “My brother, I won’t tell you lie, I’m Anini,” He was then carried out, bundled into police landrover and driven to the state police command headquarters, off Sapele Road, where Osayande and his colleagues, Edward Irabor and Donald Ugbuaja (both police commissioners), were waiting.
But something happened during the melee to catch Anini. All the girls who were with him escaped as the police, anxious not to let such a fine opportunity slip away, concentrated on their major prey. The euphoria engendered by the successful operation overshadowed the only major mistake Uanreroro and his men committed.
As soon as. he arrived at the police headquarters, Anini was thoroughly questioned about his real identity by the three Commissioners led by Osayande. Irabor was the first to ask if he was Anini. His poor command of English, made worse by severe pains tearing through his body, made his reply incomprehensible. Irabar resorted to Bini dialect and asked him again. Anini said he was the one, and talked some more. He said that was Monday Osunbor, the deputy leader of his gang arrested four weeks earlier who shot Akagbosu.
Meanwhile, his blood was oozing out uncontrollably and he pleaded with the police chiefs to take him to the hospital. They later obliged him, and he wa taken to the Military Base hospital on Airport road at about 3:15 pm followed by an escort of heavily armed policemen. Before he was wheeled to the theatre for an emergency operation to stop the blood flow, he was presented to pressmen who had converged at the police headquarters immediately after the news of his arrest broke out.
Anini lay flat on his back on a stretcher, his trunk covered with a white hospital cloth soaked all through with blood. He was listless and his left leg with the shattered ankle dangled pitiably. His sorry condition aptly reflected the mighty fall he had taken from the hallow pedestal from which he directed his gang’s bloody assaults on the police and the public.
The operation was very vital as Anini was wanted alive to unravel his mysterious past. “I am doing everything possible to have the police get Anini alive because I think he has something to tell the public,” Governor once said. What the Governor meant was that the merciless criminal should be made to tell all he knew about the involvement of some policemen and their officers with the underworld men. Osayande reiterated Inienger’s concern when he said: “I wanted to find him alive.” He was a bit concerned that Anini might not survive his injuries.
In the same military hospital, 22years old Osunbor, Anini’s henchman, was still recuperating from the wounds he sustained from his clash with the policemen some four weeks before. Only two room separated his own from that of his former crime boss. 24hours after he was caught, Anini had virtually become a cripple strapped permanently to a hospital bird in unfamiliar surroundings. There he spoke publicly for the first time with Osayande, the police boss.
Osayande: have they given you food yet?
. Anini: Yes.
Osayande: when are we going to talk now, today?
Anini: okay, but I would want to get well before I talk. I will talk.
Osayande: what else do you need?
Anini: minerals (soft drinks) and cigarette.
Osayande: I have to find out from doctor whether you can smoke.
Anini: eh! He allowed it. I asked him here and he said I am free to smoke, but no money to buy it.
Osayande: do you know me?
Anini: yes. I do but without you, I don’t think i can make a statement to anybody
Osayande: Without me? Oh, you want me to be here. Okay, I will come. When do we come? Monday (Osunbor) is here, he was lying against you. You don’t know that.
Anini: Was he saying I am the one who killed the policemen?
Osayande: Yes.
Anini: He is the one who killed them. Has he not confessed to you that he is the one who killed them?
Osayénde: kills policemen?
Anini: Yes
Osayande: Did l say you are very humane, that you don’t kill policemen?
Anini: I have not killed a policeman before, I have not killed anybody. I only threaten people. If you like to give me, if you don’t like, okay. But once it is Monday or any other person, they are ready to shoot. But for me, I don’t shoot any person. Eh pa, tell them to buy cigarette for me now?
Osayande kept his promise to give him anything, and ordered Uanreroro, the man who reduced the former armed robbery king to whimpering helplessness, to go and arrange for two packets of Benson and Hedges and two bottles of soft drinks to be brought to Anini. Before then, he gave him eight sticks from his own packet.

Two rooms away, Osunbor. who had refused to talk since he was arrested began to squeal. He said that Anini led their gang because he was instrumental to the arrangement for the steady supply of arms for their operations. He castigated Anini for denying his involvement in the killing of policemen, and pointedly accused him of having masterminded the killing of A. 0. Emojeve, a medical doctor brutally shot at his residence located off Textile Mill Road, Benin city, one evening in October.

According to him, he met Anini less than four months ago
at a “smoke joint” somewhere on Lagos Street in Benin City. Osunbor, described by Osayande as “a sadist, one of the best shots (in the underworld) and very wild even in captivity dropped out of school class three. His luck ran out four weeks ago when he and two members of the gang were shot and arrested by the police. Following his arrest, Osayande told the press that Osunbor was mostly responsible for the killing of policemen.

Before Osayande left the heavily guarded hospital, he again called on Anini, accompanied this time by Abdullahi Shettima, new Bendel police Commisioner, and lrabor. They spoke with Anini for some minutes but no reporter was allowed into the room. It was there Anini dropped the bombshell: he implicated a very top officer of the state police special anti-crime squad who had recently been moved to the Force CID, Alagbon Close Lagos. He was reported to have said that large amount of money were regularly passed on to the officer for his “role as a godfather’ to the gang.

Jubilation in Benin was persuasive. Hundreds of market women sang and danced along some of the major roads. A huge crowd gathered at the
police headquarters trying to catch a glimpse of the man who had put so much fear in them and forced them into early “retirement” behind firmly closed doors in the evening. The joy of the women was particularly understandable because Anini had vowed that he would die in one of the markets in the city and take quite a sizeable number of people with him.

The police celebration of victory was equally unabashed. Lorry loads of armed mobile policemen went round the city in a visceral outpouring of feelings of achievement. The victory dance began at the police command officers’ mess where, for over 20 minutes, Policemen, and their officers “sang” with their guns, shooting incessantly into the air. Their gunshots were accompanied by wild shouts and battle songs. Governor Inienger was effusive in his praise of the police success. He said the police authorities made good their promise that Anini would be in their net before Christmas. He recalled that the mere mention of Anini’s name “drove fear down the spines of every Nigerian because of the myth built around him”

Police inspector- General Mohammadu Gambo was equally elated by the latest development in the battle against crime in Bendel State. When he assumed dirty November 1, he assured the nation that the Anini saga would soon be over.

Even people in Lagos who equally face the menace of armed robbery were overjoyed by the news of Anini’s end. Said Gani Tokun, a businessman: ‘I was about to eat when i heard the news. I could no longer eat because I was so happy”. Foluke Adewusi was not impressed by Anirü’s myth. She dismissed him as a common criminal and said he should be “tried and jailed for a very long time.”
Kola Bamidele, a pharmacist, did not share in the general euphoria over Anini’s end. “i don’t care if he had been arrested. It is nothing to jubilate about,” he said adding that the jubilations would turn sour if they allow him to talk. “I hope his life will be saved.
When the end came for Anini, his famed “magical” mirror which allegedly foretold any impending danger failed miserably to perform. Even his vanishing, powers were put in abeyance by his spiritual protectors who probably got angry with him for messing up their powers with too many women who were, indeed, one of Anini’s proven weaknesses. He used them indiscriminately for his nefarious acts and particularly for his pleasures.

The house in which he met his Waterloo belongs to Jackson Aideyan, deceased, and father of Florence, one of the girls with Anini. When the police pounced on him, he did not have a gun. All they recovered from the room were his gold ring, one wristwatch, a small woven white bag of charms, 16 pounds of 9mm bullets, police and army uniforms, including ceremonial ones.
On Friday 5 December, and to ensure Anini did not die of the wounds sustained when he was arrested, his left leg was chopped off by doctors at the Military Based Hospital, Benin. Before then, he had mentioned the name of one, George lyamu, a Deputy Superintended of Police (DSP) as their major backer in the police force of Bendel state, and when the trial began on 29 December 1986 at the second Bendel State Robbery and Firearms Tribunal, Anini and lyamu confronted each other. lyamu had been picked up since December 4, in Lagos.

Anini revealed how N50,000 was paid to lyamu for destruction of evidences and the rent of guns and ammunitions. He drew out laughter from spectators when he said he did not have any supernatural “disappearing power.”What had been happening was that lyamu informed them of all police moves, and all they did was circumspect or preempt such ambush. Of course, lyamu denied it all, but that did not save him from bagging a death sentence. On Saturday, 14 February 1987, he and eight others faced the music of death from staccato of gun shots. They never lived to tell the story.

But Anini and Monday were not killed on this day, for there was the second case involving them. This case was also quickly dispatched and on Sanitation Day, Saturday, 28 March 1987, at 11:05am, Crime kingpin, “ Lawrence Anini, alias Ovbigbo the Law” died, saying ‘Let me reap what have sown!”


Curled from The Nigerian National Memoirs