The 32 year old man, who is currently cooling off at the Specail Anti-Robbery Sqaud, SARS, Ikeja, narrated to Vanguard how he robbed with the notorious Southwest robbery czar, Abiodun Ogunjobi, a.k.a. Godogodo and how he lavished his N90million share of the loot. Excerpts.
Continue After The Break.My name is Felix Sunday. I am a resident of Lagos State and I was a commercial bus driver. I joined my first robbery gang in 2009 and was the gang’s driver. Members of my gang then were old men and all of them are dead now.
They were killed in a robbery operation at Ajah area, but before then, a member of my gang had introduced me to Emmanuel Ehianeta, a.k.a. Arab, who is also a notorious robber. After their death I joined Arab and we began to operate together. Arab specialized in car snatching and we stole many cars at gun point. After each operation, he usually gave the car to a man who would drive it into Benin Republic to deliver to some of our buyers.
We did that for some time before we had issues. I stopped working with him because he was cheating me. He usually gave me peanuts after receiving proceeds from the cars we stole. I relocated to Ondo State and formed a new gang.
There, I had Chiboy and Okey as members and we specialized in house visiting. We robbed people of their valuables each time we visited their homes. We did that until 2011 when Chiboy was killed by the police in Ondo State. I quickly moved out of that state because the police were also looking for me. I relocated to Oyo State, where I became a commercial bus driver.
I vowed never to return to robbery and was contented with what I was making. But there was this man who usually sent me to the prison to deliver some items to his younger brother who was locked up there.
The man was paying me very well and I was happy doing the job for him. However in one of my numerous visits to the prison, I asked his brother what brought him to the prison and he said he was arrested for robbery, I felt sorry for him and told him that I was also a robber but had quit the job because it is dangerous.
He looked at me and laughed. Thereafter he described me as a small time robber. He asked if I could ignore a big job that could fetch me a million naira. I thought about it for a while and said, I would only do it if it would make me rich and pull me out of poverty. He told me to be patient adding that he would give my number to someone who would link me to the job.
In January 2012, I got a call from a man who identified himself as OJ and he explained that he got my number from Destiny, the guy I had been seeing in prison. OJ later told me that there was a job for me at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos, and he would want me to come to Computer Village in Lagos, to meet other members of the gang.
When I got there I met Asiwaju, Atoba, Eso and OJ. There OJ told me that they had concluded plans to strike at the airport and the only thing they needed then were rifles for the job. I told them not to worry that I knew someone who could provide us with some rifles.
I contacted one Ore, who used to be close to Arab and asked him how to get a rifle. He told me that Arab had two AK 47 rifles given to him in Benin Republic by his receivers in exchange for some cars. I called Arab. At first he was mad at me and asked why I was calling. I told him of the job at the airport that the foreign currencies were being exported unguarded and all we needed was to steal it. He doubted me but I managed to convince him to meet other members of the gang and he was taken to the airport and shown how the monies were being exported.
By February of that year I, Atoba, Eso, Arab and Asiwaju drove to the airport around 7:pm. I was the one driving. I parked near the barbed wire and waited in the car while four of them went into the airport for the money. Arab and Eso held the Ak 47 rifles while Asiwaju held a pistol.
I was told that when they got to the spot where the money was Arab shot sporadically into the air to scare passersby and Atoba went straight for the bags containing the money. In less then 10 minutes, they were through with the operation and entered my vehicle with the money while I drove off. We escaped through Lagos-Ibadan Expressway and when we got to Ijebu-Ode we entered into a bush to share the money.
Threat to kill everyone
Before then Arab had asked Eso and Asiwaju to hand over the pistol and rifles to him so he could keep them safe from the police. But when we began to share the money Arab corked one of the rifles and threatened to kill everyone. He said he wanted to leave with the whole money but I begged him not to do so and agreed that he should take any amount he wanted as his share.
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| Felix Sunday… wasted his N90 million robbery proceeds |
He then asked me to bring a bag and said I should load the money into it until the bag was full and I did so. After that he ordered us to share the remaining money equally among ourselves including the informant and the middle-man that brought the job. I gave Eso, Asiwaju, Atoba and myself N90million each and kept N45million for the informant and another N45 million for OJ, who was the middle-man.
Asiwaju offered to deliver the money to the informant and the middle-man. We all went our separate ways from there. The first thing I did was to contact a lawyer to help me register a company because I wanted to sell cars. The lawyer took about N500, 000 from me and also leased a land for me for about N1.6million which I used as show room. I went to Benin Republic and bought many cars which I kept in my show room. I also bought many landed property at Ijebu-Ode.
Since I was a transporter, I decided to open a transport company, I bought three Toyota Sienna space buses and took them to Maza-MazaMotorPark, where I wanted them to be used for inter-state transportation. One of the Sienna buses had an accident on it first journey and all the passengers including the driver died in the process.
Things were moving smoothly for me until the police in Oyo State stumbled on the rifles we used for the airport operation. They found it in the home of a man Arab gave them to keep. The man told the Oyo SARS operatives that I was very close to Arab so they stormed Ijebu-Ode and they started looking for me. They didn’t find it difficult locating me because my sudden wealth and business empires gave me out. They stormed my home and looted all my property and they went to my show room and took all the cars in it. I was left with no other option than to run out of the state and I relocated to Calabar, Cross River State. I lived in Calabar for about three months but life in that state was too expensive. My money was dwindling seriously and the man who was managing my transportation company stopped remitting money to me, so I decided to come to Lagos State. I went to Ikorodu, but I was very scared.
I was moving from one hotel to the other and spending too much money. A girl who was very close to me became pregnant and I decided to marry her. We didin’t even have a house of our own then and I didn’t have enough money to rent an apartment. Then I decided to sell the Toyota Corolla I was using for N1.6million and bought a Peugeot 406 for N400, 000. I used the balance to rent an apartment and furnished it. I became almost broke at that time, and then started working my phones, calling other members of my gang to ask if there was any job.
Luckily I was told that plans were on ground to rob a bank in Osun State and what they were working on was to pick a suitable date for the job. But on December 18, 2012, Asiwaju asked me to meet him at Ijebu-Ode, from where we proceeded to the bank.
My gang wasn’t the only one that was involved in that operation. Paul, an Igbo boy was also leading a gang of Igbo boys from the south east. As usual I drove my gang to the scene and we succeeded in that operation. We carted away a huge sum of money from the bank .
Since the number of men involved in that job was much, I was given just N200,000 and I took it home to my family. By January 2013, Asiwaju, called again to say there was a job in Kwara State and the operation was being coordinated by Godogodo.
We struck at two banks in that state and I got about N500,000 as my share and life began to become normal for me again. Godogodo also brought a bullion van job for us again at Ijebu-ode and we succeeded in carting away all the money in the bullion van which included foreign currencies. My share in that job was N150,000.
Godogodo and other big time robbers like Paul, Odun and others took the larger share of it. But in March 2013, Asiwaju who had three Ak47 rifles then called a meeting of all members of the gang and said we have to rob the airport again. This time we sidelined the Alhaji and OJ, and went to the MMIA ourselves to survey how the money was being moved.
Movements of the money
On Wednesday, March 13, 2013, we struck at the airport, but before we got there we encountered a little traffic on our away. Two members of our gang who we had stationed earlier to monitor the movements of the money called us and said the money was already moving and by the time we arrived at the airport, the money had been moved from the car park into the departure lounge of the airport. We shot sporadically into the air to cause panic and distraction but some policemen who were at the airport to escort some expatriates shot at us and they killed Eso.
But Asiwaju, Atoba faced them, rained bullets and killed two of them. Before we knew what was happening the money had moved beyond our reach. We couldn’t do anything, we descended on the bureau de change operators at the airport and we carted away the sum of N10 million.
That operation turned out to be my last. I went home to my family but one week later I got a call from a member of our gang, a Pastor, who prepared the charms and oath we took before the operation. He said that he needed to see me for a job. I didn’t know that he was with the police and when I came out to see him, I was arrested. I regret getting back to armed robbery and would have stuck to my vows.”
Naija Gist,Nigeria.
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