THE FACE OF TERROR: LAWRENCE ANINI, Nigeria’s most notorious armed robber on the hospital bed after he was badly injured following his capture in December, 1986. PICTURE CREDITS: NATIONAL MIRROR.
On the 23rd of August 1986, something bizarre happened in Bendel State, Nigeria. A prince of the Benin royal family, Kingsley Eweka, was bundled to the Ikpoba Hill (Ekenwan Road) firing range. A Bini prince and an aristocrat by birth and virtue of belonging to one of Africa’s oldest and most revered monarchies, Kingsley was however not accorded any honour that fateful day. As a matter of fact, he had just been condemned and sentenced to death by a court of law for armed robbery and he was manacled like a petty criminal that he was. At a time when the law was really blind, the prince was lined up and in a matter of minutes, he was fired and joined his ancestors. But something very interesting happened shortly before he was killed.
Prince Eweka took a good look at his executioners, struggling to turn his neck as his body was firmly tied to the stake. They also looked back at the condemned criminal and cast furtive and somewhat puzzled glances at themselves. Then they asked him if he had anything to say. An embittered Eweka was overtaken with rage and he thundered:
‘My friend and his boys will avenge my death!’
But the executioners, who did not know those Eweka was ranting about, thought it was just the paranoid prattle of a man facing a sure death. They thought Prince Eweka was just delusional and were not even interested in any friend of his, if indeed he had any. Theirs was to escort him to the border between this world and the next. The executioners let out warm smiles that slipped out of their vengeful cheeks and in a matter of minutes, Kingsley Eweka was history, to explain himself before the gods. But the prince was not blabbing. The whole of Nigeria would soon hear of his ‘friend and his boys’. And it was indeed a very bloody revenge.
Prince Eweka and other suspects were arraigned before the Armed Robbery and Firearms Tribunal. With his fellow partners in crime, they paid the ultimate price.
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The year 1986. October was the month. The iron-fisted military junta of Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida was rattled by a 26-year-old man who could not even speak a single sentence in English, not to talk of write a line of grammar. The gap-toothed Nigerian military president was furious and he summoned his highest-ranking police chiefs.
Some hundreds of kilometers away from the cosy and secured chambers of IBB’s Armed Forces Revolutionary Council where the high-powered meeting was going on, in the ancient city of Benin, everyone was bathed in fear and it was very palpable Bendel State lived under the dark blanket of sheer terror spread by this young man who spoke only Pidgin English and his local dialect . Everything was tried to capture this elusive figure but nothing worked and he continued to unleash unspeakable horror upon the defenceless citizens.
The people of Benin felt they had had enough. One fateful day, women leaders of various markets all over Benin trooped to the Oba of Benin’s palace and pleaded with him to use his powers to consult with the spirits and stop the dark rains of Anini. At a point, the monarch had to go on radio to appeal to the gangsters to let peace reign in Benin. Anini respected the crown and went underground with his gang for a while only to resurface with renewed vigour.
The Oba of Benin, Omo N’Oba N’Edo Uku Akpolokpolo, Erediauwa I, was visibly disturbed as his people were mercilessly slaughtered, killed, raped, robbed and maimed by a young desperado that everyone, including the government, feared. Being a monarch who would never fold his arms and leave his people to be terrorized, the highly-revered Oba called a meeting with his council of traditional chiefs. The Oba then ordered all his Bini subjects to make supplications to the gods for the reign this young man to end. The Oba also called on the security agencies to try their best to fish out the brains behind the dastardly acts threatening to turn pristine Benin into something else.
Benin Kingdom is one of the most legendary in Africa and not even in its thousands of years of existence was it so menacingly disturbed by a single bandit. A curfew from 10pm till dawn was imposed on the whole state because of one man. He was an armed robber but they called him ‘The Governor’. When people mentioned the Governor of Bendel State, they would ask you:
Anini or Inienger?
Inienger, a colonel in the Nigerian Army was the governor of the state. But wait a minute, who was Lawrence Nomayangbon (also spelt as Nomayanukpon) Anini, aka Anini the Law and why was he feared to the extent that IBB had to personally demand for his capture during a meeting of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), the nation’s highest decision making body in October 1986? IBB faced his Inspector-General of Police, Etim Inyang and the Commander-in-Chief blurted out:
‘My friend, where is Anini?’
A challenged Inyang replied:
‘We shall find him soon.’
But Inyang never did. His retirement from service came in November 1986 (his retirement notice was previously announced in October 1986 and it is still not clear whether his retirement was mandatory or voluntary) and the lot fell of the next IGP, Mohammed Gambo Jimeta who told journalists upon becoming the new police top boss on the 1st November, 1986:
‘I would catch Anini very soon.’
The nation would later get the answer in the most dramatic fashion. Dearest Reader, Abiyamo welcomes you to the underworld, the den of the smoking guns, of the racing bullets, the world of the legendary and almost mythical Anini alias The Law, alias The Governor, alias Ovbiudu (the Lion-Hearted), alias Robin Hood of Africa, alias The Unbeatable, alias The Robber’s Robber, the man who would later etch his name in ugly and scrawly black ink in history as Nigeria’s most notorious armed robber. But who was this thief whom many believed could vanish into the thin air using the dark forces of magic?
Babangida had been thorougly embarrassed by the Anini saga and he was even taunted by the BBC that as the military president, he held sway over all the 17 out of the 19 states of the Federation with the exception of two strategic ones: Lagos and Bendel which were ruled by criminals. In one year in the 1980s, from January to July, Lagos alone witnessed 208 violent crimes. IBB’s clenched fist was understandable. Anini was the latest target. The Daily Times (8th December, 1986) fired back at the BBC following Anini’s capture:
‘President Babangida controlled 17 states while while Anini Suzerainty held sway in the remaining two states, Bendel and Lagos. The grievous implication of BBC’s scathing news items was that Nigeria was a country where security of life and property could not be assured and that the atmosphere was not fertile for foreign investment. No thanks to the dastardly acts of a mean criminal called Anini. The BBC should swallow its words.’
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