| *Untold story of the brutal robbery kingpin |
| *The international manhunt that led to his arrest |
| Remi Ladigbolu |
It is indeed no longer news that the infamous era of one of Nigeria’s most ruthless and blood-thirsty robbery kingpin, Abiodun Egunjobi aka Abbey Godogodo, was recently brought to an end by the police in Lagos.
This feat was achieved through the determined efforts of the Lagos state police boss, Mr. Umaru Manko, assisted by a crack and dedicated team of anti-robbery operatives, led by Mr. Abba Kyari, a Superintendent of Police.
What had never been reported by any news media, however, are the several months of painstaking investigations, the international manhunt, such as never been witnessed before, and much more, which resulted in the eventual capture of the criminal mastermind.
In an exclusive interview with Chief Detective, Manko, for the first time, revealed how he and his men successfully pieced together the puzzle that surrounded the much dreaded Godogodo, once believed to possess unbelievable supernatural prowess, including the ability to mysteriously vanish from the scene of a crime when cornered by the police.
During his bloody and brutal exploits, Godogodo allegedly killed no fewer than 50 policemen, while security agents recovered about 60 AK47 rifles, among other arms, from his gang at the time of his arrest.
Also, it was gathered that Godogodo used to tell his gang that he would never be arrested alive and had vowed to go down with as many policemen as possible on the day he is unable to escape arrest. This vow was later found to be real, as anti-robbery detectives recovered several loaded AK47s, each with 60 rounds of live ammunition, from different parts of his residence, including the kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, sitting room on the day of his arrest.
Giving a blow-by-blow account of the seven-month long, extra-ordinary, piece of police work that led to Godogodo’s downfall, Manko revealed that Godogodo began his voyage into the underworld after spending seven years in prison for what he considered a minor offence. He believed his going to prison was an injustice and blamed the police for it.
While in prison, he became acquainted with more deadly armed robbers. So, he took his time to understudy them. And when he finally left prison, he decided that he was going to deal with the police for sending him to prison for seven years.
As a precursor to actualising his decision, he took some time to study the psyche of an average policeman and used the result to build an effective strategy that helped him evade arrest for so long. This also made it possible for him to maintain an air of invincibility among his gang members. Many of them believed he had magical powers that enabled him disappear whenever he wanted.
Manko disclosed that his command’s first major encounter with Godogodo and his gang was in the early hours of 10th of September, 2012; same day the Inspector General of Police (IG) was to inaugurate the first set of vehicles donated to the police by the Lagos State government through the state’s Security Trust Fund.
Early that morning, gunmen, believed to be members of Godogodo’s gang, snatched a vehicle, which they later used to successfully rob a Bureau de Change. The robbers, who were heavily armed, defied every attempt by the police to corner them. This resulted in frequent gun fights between the gang and the police, leaving some policemen and several residents dead. And despite the carnage, the gang still managed to escape.
The development, according to Manko, was not only sad but also a big embarrassment, because of the presence of the IG in Lagos during this period.
“After the IG left, I called all the Principal Officers of the command and told them the incident was a big embarrassment and had thoroughly discredited us. We were saddened by the fact that the Inspector General of Police came to commission vehicles donated by the government through tax payers’ money and the people we were supposed to use these vehicles to fight had a field day and we couldn’t do anything. So, we took it as a challenge,” Manko stated.
Not long afterwards, there was another robbery at the International Airport, in Lagos, where two police inspectors were killed. Again, Godogodo’s name crept up during investigations. It was at this point that the police decided to focus on profiling the suspect, because, up to that point, no one knew anything about him or what he looked like. The police also began looking at the possibility of pre-empting his subsequent operations.
Detectives soon got a lucky break, when a robbery, which fitted into the established modus operandi of Godogodo’s gang, was reported at a branch of First Bank, in Ilorin, Kwara State. They obtained the close circuit television (CCTV) recording of the operation and through it, succeeded in apprehending some suspects.
Though, all the arrested suspects confirmed that Godogodo took part in the operation, the CCTV recording, somehow, failed to capture his image. But the confessions of his arrested colleagues brought the police a few steps closer to their target.
In the course of further investigation, police also discovered that what Godogodo did normally was to start constructing a new house in a location unknown to any member of his gang, whenever they carried out an operation that fetched them a lot of money. So, anytime he sensed that security agents were closing in on him, he would simply abandon his former house and move to the new one.
Godogodo, himself, told the police after his arrest that he took only raw cash during his operations and would only attack a place he knew there would be enough cash to cart away. He also said he doesn’t have any bank account. He invested all his money in property immediately after each operation. Also, he does not drink, does not womanize and does not attend parties. These and several other tactics made it possible for him to evade arrest for such a long time.
At a point during the investigation, police succeeded in locating one of his houses in Ikorodu. But, by the time they got there, he had moved again. They persisted and managed to locate where he moved to, but, again, he was a step ahead of them. When they got to the house, they were told he had moved to a fish farm he owned at another location. When detectives got to the fish farm, they saw 52 fish ponds with workers, but Godogodo was nowhere to be found. It was there they learned he had travelled to Dubai.
Manko further recalled: “By the time we got to Dubai, we saw from their records that he had checked out. He moved out of the place he was staying the previous night. That made it clear to us that he, too, had somebody monitoring the police. Since he indicated that he was returning to Nigeria, we went to the airport here to wait. We didn’t know he first went to Ethiopia and came into Abuja from there. Then, he disappeared again.
“But, this boy called Kyari; the OC SARS (officer in-charge of Special Anti-Robbery Squad) is one young man with lots of patience. We kept building up our investigation until we were able to find somebody who knew his family. That person said the only thing she knew was that he had moved to Ibadan; but where in Ibadan, she couldn’t tell. Still, we carried on until we were able to get another relation, who took us to where he lived.
“We then mounted surveillance around the house for 14 days, before we finally struck and got him. Most of his colleagues that we had arrested would tell us that the man had the powers to disappear. He also used to tell them that anytime it became clear that he was going to be arrested, it was his dead body that the police would pick. And before he was killed, he would kill as many policemen as he could. So, we were very conscious of that warning.
“The operation took us about seven months before we finally got him that early morning. Even, on that day, after we had identified the house, policemen waited there for more than 11 hours. We didn’t go in and nobody came out of the place. But we remained patient and continued to consider our options carefully until he eventually came out. And to prove the point of what he used to tell his colleagues, we recovered six AK47 rifles in his kitchen, his bedroom, and toilets, everywhere. And each rifle had double magazines attached to it; which means that in each rifle, he had about 60 rounds of live ammunition.”
Manko said Godogodo and his gang killed eight policemen during the period he had been in Lagos as commissioner of police, but, told his interrogators he had killed more than 50 policemen in all.
He added that 60 AK47s, which were service rifles, were recovered from Godogodo and his gang.
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