₦airaland Forum

SEP 1962 – Diary Of Western Nigeria’s Political Crisis – As parliamentarians in the Western House of Assembly riot, some MPs seek any means of exit. This record of the crisis in Western Nigeria serves as a reminder that we must never again allow political difference to get so disastrously out of hand. ( Photograph by Matthew Faji ©BAHA)

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Nigeria's Richard Ihetu aka Dick Tiger (1929-1971) of Amaigbo (Nkwerre-Orlu) in Imo State remains Africa's most internationally accomplished pugilist after over four decades following his last professional fight in 1970. No African boxer has since come close to matching Tiger's sterling championship record. Among the national and internation boxing laurels he won during his 18 year boxing career (1952-1970) were the Nigerian National Middleweight Title (1954), the British Empire (Comonwealth) Middleweight title (1958), NBA (later WBA) World Middleweight Title (1962), Undisputed World Middleweight Title (1963 and 1965), and Undisputed World Light Heavyweight Title (1966): Posted here is a collection of eight black and white photographs of the champion taken during the course of his fighting career. These include highlights of his world championship fights in the USA and Ibadan Nigeria, some publicity shots organized to promote his fights, photos of the champion with his wife and children on special ocassions and finally there's a photo of his funeral held in his birthplace in December 1971. The photographs were all featured in my brief biography of the champion published in 2002: "Dick Tiger The Life & Times of Africa's Most Accomplished World Boxing Champion": The final color photograph is of me with Tiger's widow, Mrs. Abigail Ihetu and daughter Justina at the latter's home in the Bronx in New York during the final stages of the writing of the biography in 2002 when I interviewed them.

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The Tiger is laid to rest, December 1971: Amid grieving relatives, friends and other sympathizers the casket of Dick Tiger is carried to his final resting place. On the left hand side of photo is a visibly shaken Abigail.

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August 1971: Dick Tiger with three of his children at the International Airport in Lagos. The effects of his terminal illness are quite apparent from his leanness. Three months later, the former multiple world champion die near his birthplace of Amaigbo-Orlu

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Tiger and the Blonde Circa 1967: In a publicity shot to promote an upcoming bout, Tiger parries the right hook of a beautiful, blonde model before the world press in London

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Dick Tiger had many Nigerian dignitaries among his teeming fans in the country. One of such was the venerable Chief Simeon Adebo, Nigeria’s first Ambassador to the United Nations seen here enthusiastically receiving an autograph from the world champion circa 1965

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To celebrate his 34th birthday in August 1963, this publicity shot was arranged showing wife, Abigail feeding the Tiger a piece of his birthday cake

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Circa August 1963: Dick Tiger dancing with his wife, Abigail at a party held to commemorate his 34th birthday anniversary

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From one Legend to Another: Longest reigning world heavyweight champion Joe Louis (1937-1949) lends a hand holding the heavy bag for Dick Tiger during training (circa 1963).

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Tiger receives inspiration and words of encouragement from a fellow Nigerian as he prepares to go into the ring for his second world title bout against Gene Fullmer, Las Vegas, February 1963

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Nigerian fight fans carry Dick Tiger shoulder high at ring center celebrating the victory of their countryman over Gene Fullmer for the NBA world middleweight title, San Francisco October 1962

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Here I am with Tiger's widow, Mrs. Abigail Ihetu and daughter, Justina at the latter's aprtmentment in the Bronx, New York during the final stages of the writing of my biography of Tiger in 2002
By
Damola Ifaturoti

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[size=13pt]Naples mafiosi were convicted this week of forcing a Nigerian cancer patient into prostitution. Barbie Latza Nadeau on the African girls trapped in Italy’s sex-slave trade.
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The Domitiana highway was built in 95 A.D. as a thoroughfare, leading north up the boot of Italy from the bay of Naples. Now it is something like a one-stop sex supermarket where up to 600 Nigerian prostitutes can be found at a time along a 30-kilometer stretch of the pot-holed road.

Across Italy, Nigerian women are forced into the sex trade, essentially kept as slaves who are bought and sold and moved according to a moribund supply and demand. Some of the prostitutes are young girls, just 13 or 14 years old. Others are in their 20s or 30s. Many have children. Some are still married to men in Nigeria. They usually sit on white plastic chairs under umbrellas to protect them from the rain in the winter and the harsh sun in the summer. The highest concentration of Nigerian forced sex workers is in and around Naples, but they are not limited to the southern reaches. On Thursday, in the central region of Abruzzo, four Nigerian gang members and an Italian taxi driver who allegedly procured prostitutes across the country were sentenced to between nine and 15 years in prison for making 23-year-old Nigerian Lilian Solomon prostitute herself even though she was in the late stages of lymphoma cancer. The court in Teramo ruled that the Nigerian band prohibited the young woman from seeking treatment and should be held responsible for her death. She was represented in court by members of “On the Road” association against sex trafficking, which alerted authorities about her plight. Solomon testified under oath against the band before she died in 2009. The sentence, four years after her death, won’t bring her back, but it is one small step toward holding the sex traffickers accountable.

According to Renato Natale, a local Neapolitan doctor who is a former anti-mafia mayor of Casal di Principe, the majority of the Nigerian girls and women who are sex slaves were sold for around $50,000 by their parents or husbands in Nigeria, often to pay loan sharks or to get families out of debt. Some women paid sums of more than $13,000 out of their own pockets in exchange for the promise to find legitimate work in Italy with the goal of sending money home or even eventually bringing their entire families over. Natale says when they arrive in Italy, they are often raped into submission and plied with drugs and turned into prostitutes. Many of the women have scars on their bodies from a voodoo-style initiation ritual where they pledge allegiance to their pimps out of fear of torture. “Frida,” 26, is a former prostitute who now works at a shelter for abused women in Rome. She says her initiation included vaginal penetration with a hot candle. She has scars on her inner thighs from the hot wax. She worked on the Via Domitiana for three years before she ran away with one of her clients who she befriended. She said many of the women on the Neapolitan highway try to convince the clients to take them away, but they often get caught and the men are threatened never to return. “Even the police sometimes pay for sex,” she told The Daily Beast. “There is no protection there from anyone. There is no one you can trust.”

She says she was required to pay the Nigerian mafia dons $400 a month for one-square-meter of highway to work off the $50,000 investment. Natale says the Nigerians, in turn, pay a fee to the Casalesi clan of the Camorra organized-crime syndicate, who run the sex trade around Naples. Natale says the women are not allowed to charge more than $13 a trick—the market rate for street sex in the impoverished south—and they are not allowed to refuse customers. Frida says they were afraid to charge more. “They watched us all the time,” she says. “They would drive by or send spies to make sure we stayed in line.”

Prostitution is not illegal in Italy as long as the sex workers are over 18, but it is illegal to pick up a prostitute on the street. Recently, police have been enforcing the client crackdown on roadside prostitution by fining the clients, so the mob has started buying up apartment blocks along the Via Domitiana and in other parts of the country. They have started moving the women off the streets and into the villas where drugs are sold in the basement and sex is sold upstairs. Natale used to visit the women on the streets and give them medications for STDs. He says the move to put the women in the houses is far more dangerous and life-threatening. “These people are treated like merchandise,” he says. “Now they are being kept in these houses that are protected by armed guards. They were somewhat safer on the streets because at least there we could check on them.”

There is little hope to stop the illegal sex-trafficking racket, says Natale, because most of the women are illegal immigrants and do not have documents and are not in the Italian state system and therefore “nonexistent” in the eyes of the authorities. But there is also a bigger problem in that there is no authoritative government entity currently involved in stopping sex trafficking in Italy. All the work is done by non-governmental organizations with limited funds and virtually no power. “We are like ghosts,” says Frida, who recently legalized her living status in Italy and wants to help other Nigerians get off the street. “We are literally shadows on the highway.

Source: http://www.thedailybeast.com/witw/articles/2013/04/19/nigerian-girls-trafficked-in-italy-s-sex-slave-trade.html

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Suspect 2 (white cap) in custody

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Suspect 1 (Black cap) dead

Listen all you potential jihadist!
if your religion requires you to kill someone , please start with yourself

This is serious!
The fu.cker just updated his status
https://twitter.com/Dzhokhar_

Afam4eva: Is this the one that was killed?

suspect 1 (Black cap), was the boxer and was the one that was killed
Suspect 2 (white cap) is still on the run

The suspect 2 twitter acct
https://twitter.com/Dzhokhar_

The Suspect 1 pix

http://johanneshirn.photoshelter.com/gallery-image/Will-Box-For-Passport/G0000VQW7v6xWA7o/I0000AU.nxJON94o

The Suspect One pix profile

http://johanneshirn.photoshelter.com/gallery-image/Will-Box-For-Passport/G0000VQW7v6xWA7o/I0000AU.nxJON94o

His twitter account

https://twitter.com/Dzhokhar_

Justice Olumuyiwa Jibowu(1899- 1959) Jurist.
Born in Abeokuta he attended Abeokuta Grammar School and Oxford University. He was called to the Bar in London in 1923. In 1942 he became the first Nigerian High Court Judge. In 1957 he was appointed Chief Justice of Lagos High Courts and Southern Cameroons. He later became the first African to swear-in a Colonial Governor-general and to serve in the Supreme Court.

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Obong (Major General) Philip Efiong, Akankang Ibiono Ibom (1925-2003),joined the Nigerian Armed Services on 28 July 1945. He quickly rose through the service ranks until 11 January 1956 when he received the Queen's Commission after his officer cadet training at Eaton Hall in Chester. England later commissioned him for duty in the Rhine in West Germany. Effiong was then transferred to the Nigerian Army Ordnance Corps and then to England for further training after a peace keeping stint in the Republic of Congo in 1961. He was Nigeria's first Director of Ordnance.He also had a son who was named after him. Efiong became Chief of General Staff of Biafra under Head of State, Odumegwu Ojukwu during the Nigeria-Biafra war. Efiong assumed leadership in this situation of turmoil, starvation, and collapse. He became Head of State of Biafra on 8 January 1970 and on 12 January announced surrender . Efiong died 6 November 2003, at the age of 78 less than two weeks before his 79th birthday .

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PASTOR DANIELS EKARTE [Born: Calabar, Nigeria 1896 – Died Liverpool,England 12 July 1964]: Community Activist, Anglican Clergy, Social Reformer. Source of photograph - Ebony Magazine
.

Pastor, community activist, and Black leader in Liverpool . Born George Daniel, Daniels Ekarte worked as an errand boy with the Free Church of Scotland in Calabar, Nigeria. Inspired to become a missionary in England, he left as a galley‐hand on board a ship bound for Liverpool in 1915 . There, instead of encountering a charitable Christian people, Ekarte met with strong racist attitudes and felt deceived by the missionaries in Nigeria. After a period of disenchantment, he began worshipping with Africans, holding prayer services both in private spaces and in the street. With sponsorship from the Church of Scotland, Pastor Ekarte opened the African Churches Mission in Liverpool in 1931 . The Mission was primarily aimed at providing a space of worship and socializing for blacks in Liverpool.

As a community activist and leader, Pastor Ekarte also had a keen interest in the education and welfare of black children. He tried his best to ensure that children would not go hungry, or homeless people go unsheltered. Under him, the Mission became a sanctuary for those in need. As an air‐Raid precautions warden during the First World War , he also provided space for families who had lost their homes. He helped stowaways and black seamen, providing food and sometimes shelter. One of Pastor Ekarte's major accomplishments was the use of the Mission as a home for ‘coloured illegitimate children’, although his efforts to raise funds for a permanent home failed. The breadth of his charity and mission was dictated by the degree of poverty in Liverpool. Intimately connected to his charitable activities was a political concern about race and poverty in British society and the wider Pan‐African world. ~
Oxford African American Studies Centre

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A Biafra Baby MFI-9 flown by Von Rosen. Source: worldofwarplanes.com

The "Biafra Babies" (5 in number), conducted surprise strikes on Nigerian airfields, destroying many modern MiG-17 jets and three Ilyushin Il-28 bombers. None of the "Biafra Babies" were ever downed.

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MFI-9 MiniCOIN (an acronym for "Miniature Counter-Insurrection". Source: Flight Global

"Port Harcourt Airbase Attack- May 22, 1969" painting by John Young.

On May 22, 1969, and over the next few days, Von Rosen and his five aircraft launched attacks against Nigerian air fields at Port Harcourt, Enugu, Benin and other small airports. The Nigerians were taken by surprise and a number of expensive jets, including a few MiG-17 fighters and three out of Nigeria's six Ilyushin Il-28 bombers, were destroyed on the ground.

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TESLIM AKANNI 'THUNDER' BALOGUN. 1927-1972. Africa's first professional coach. Started playing football in 1944. Played for Apapa Bombers, Marine, Railway, Plateau, and Dynamo , all Nigerian clubs. He played for Queen Parks Rangers in the U.K. between 1955 and 1957. He was called ''thunder'' for his lethal shots. This picture may have been taken between 1955 and 1957.

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Death of a Mercenary in Biafra: Marc Goosens, a Flemish mercenary for Biafra, is killed in a frontal assault by Federal troops on Onitsha in November 1968. He was said to have $4,000 in his pocket when he died, about four months' pay. Biafran soldiers of the 4th Commando Divison drag his body back to their base:

culled from John de St. Jorre's The Brothers War: Biafra and Nigeris

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Eko Atlantic: [size=15pt] SACRIFICING THE PARTY TO SAVE NIGERIA

7. We have gathered at this hour and in this place to put an end to this national corrosion. We have assembled to bring a new day and a new Nigeria to our people.
The Nigerian people are decent and hard-working people. They also are long –suffering.  Just because they are long –suffering does not mean they should be forced to suffer until death comes.
Our people have had enough of having nothing. The current government’s trademark is to throw empty words and hollow action at our problems as if doing nothing will cause our troubles to leave from sheer boredom.  Instead, trouble mounts.

8. If this is the government’s idea of transformation, I will have none of it. It seems their notion of change is to go from slow motion to no motion at all.
If they want to stand still, that is their right. However, they have no right to force the whole nation to stagnate with them. We have things to accomplish and progress to make for the good of the people.
If they have nothing to offer except the nothing they have been giving us, let’s join hands with others to sweep them aside. so that we can keep pushing through and move this nation upward and forward.

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- The full text of the  speech delivered by the leader of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu at the party convention which took place at the Onikan Stadium, Lagos, on April 18, 2013.

http://www.ynaija.com/a-positive-storm-is-brewing-bola-tinubus-rousing-speech-at-the-acn-convention-read/?utm_source=&utm_medium=twitter

[size=13pt]Yes![/size]

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[size=13pt]And OBAMA Approves![/size]

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"The National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC) was formed in 1944. Herbert Macaulay (Its first President and Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe (Its first secretary). When the Southern Cameroons became part of the country of Cameroon, the NCNC kept its acronym by changing its name to the “National Convention of Nigerian Citizens”.
In 1946 the NCNC began a pan Nigerian tour during which its leader Herbert Macaulay became fatally ill in Kano and was taken back to Lagos. On his deathbed in Lagos, Macaulay’s last words were the touching epitaph: “Tell the National Council delegates to halt wherever they are for four days for Macaulay and then carry on….Tell Oged to keep the flag flying” (“Oged” was Macaulay’s son Ogedengbe). Azikiwe (who was the NCNC’s General-Secretary) then became NCNC president following the death of Macaulay in 1946" - www. maxsiollun.

Picture Source Ibi Macaulay

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Archibong V, Obong of Calabar. 1956

" The Obong now travels in this way. Once! He rode on men's shoulders " Nigeria Magazine 1956

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Oba Ovonramwen of Benin 1888-1914.He was the Oba of Benin during the British invasion in January 1897. The battle raged for three days. Britain overran Benin and burnt the city down. Oba Ovonramwen was exiled. My mother told me and my siblings the story before I was taught in school. Her grandmother my, great- grandmother was in Benin then .My mum says the day he was exiled is known as ''ede kaladehan''- I hope I got this right.

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Teacher who does not know where Kano is.
You really should read this!

Daily Times 10 November 1972

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Oluwole Awolowo: 1942 - 2013, Born at Ibadan on the 3rd day of December, 1942 into the illustrous family of the sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo. He was the third child and second son of Papa Obafemi Awolowo and Mama Hannah Idowu Dideolu Awolowo. He studied at Ibadan grammar from there he proceeded to Leighton Park School, Reading, Berdshire, England for further studies. He was admitted into the famous Leeds College of Commerce where he graduated in Business Studies in the early sixties. He won his first elective office in 1975 as a Councilor representing Apapa in the then Lagos City Council. For discharging his responsibilities creditably in various city council committees, he had virtually no rival when the time came in 1979 to pick a UPN candidate for the Lagos State House of Assembly to represent Apapa Constituency. He won a landslide victory and remained a Member of the Lagos State House of Assembly till 1983 when the military came calling the second time in the chequered history of Nigeria.

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Herbert Macaulay and some family members on his 80th birthday

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Herbert Macaulay's son Oged Macaulay c1940

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Oba Ladigbolu the Alafin of Oyo from 1911-1944 . His wives sit on either side of his throne, and they are again flanked by three eunuchs. Photo kurt Lubinski 1930s
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This country is Comedy Central, walahi

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Willzkid: QUATRICH, IF YOU HAVE THE PICTURE OF LAWRENCE ANINI, THE DARE-DEVIL ROBBER, KINDLY POST....THANKS

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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.

Josiah Olutunji Majekodunmi (April 12, 1927 – October 9, 1996) was a Nigerian Athlete.

He competed at the 1950 British Empire Games at Auckland, New Zealand where he won Nigeria's first medal in any international sports, a silver medal in the Men's High Jump event. Prior to the Commonwealth games, he captained Abeokuta Grammar School Athletics team to win the prestigious Grier Cup for Nigerian high schools in 1947 for the first and the last time. Majekodunmi was also at the 1948 London Olympics, and placed 9th in the high jump event at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics.

He was also the father of Miss Olawunmi Majekodunmi, the African Table Tennis champion for most of 1970s and 1980s.

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Poet Christopher Okigbo's marriage to Judith Safinat Attah in Enugu, 1962. Source: Thirsting for sunlight by Obi Nwakanma

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Sir Kofo Abayomi (1896- 1979)Opthamologist & Politician
He was born Kofoworola John in Lagos of Oyo heritage. He attended Methodist Boys' High School Lagos and studied Pharmacy at the Yaba Higher College. He went on to study Medicine at the University of Edinburgh and specialised as an Opthamologist. He later became the first private practitioner to be elected president of the Nigerian Medical Association. In 1930 he changed his surname to Abayomi and married Oyinkan Ajasa(later Lady Abayomi). Abayomi was a founding member of the Nigerian Youth Movement (NYM) in 1933 and later its President. He was also a prominent member of the Action Group. He became the first Nigerian Chairman of the Board of the University College Hospital, Ibadan. Abayomi was knighted in 1954

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University herald editorial board, from left to right, Chinua Achebe, Chukwuemeka Ike, Mabel Segun, D. Oforiokuma and Agu Ogan, University college Ibadan 1952.

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1957 picture of Eze Nri dancing. With him is a Dwarf

The tradition of Nri dwarfs, known throughout Igbo land is based on kindliness. Children from the surrounding country who were dwarfs were taken to the palace of the King in Aguku Nri, where they were made welcome. Later, they were trained as doctors and priests . After training , they traveled far and wide, usually on the shoulders of their followers.

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The mother of Fani Kayode Mrs Aurora Kayode nee Fanikmokun. Aurora Fanimokun was the first daughter of the respected Rev. Suberu Fanimokun of the Lagos colony (as it then was) and he was the Principal of the famous CMS Grammer School, Lagos. Her husband Victor Adedapo Kayode died at the relatively young age of 42 in 1941 whilst he was presiding over an important land case. A few of years after his death Madame Aurora Kayode remarried. Her second husband was Ernest ikoli, a well-known and very prominent ijaw man. Source: RemiKayode

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The parents of lawyer and politician Fani kayode, Mr Victor Adedapo Kayode (the tall gentleman on the left) and Miss Aurora Fanimokun (centre) on their wedding, London 1920. Source: RemiKayode.

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