fbpx
Neusroom Stories

Kingpins: Episode 1 – Abiodun ‘Godogodo’ Egunjobi

By March 13, 2021 June 22nd, 2023 3 Comments

Kingpins: The Story of Nigeria’s most Notorious Armed Robbers : Episode 1 – Abiodun ‘Godogodo’ Egunjobi

Abiodun ‘Godogodo’ Egunjobi – the one-eyed monstrous bandit who terrorised Southwest for over a decade.

abiodun godogodo egunjobi

Abiodun ‘Godogodo’ Egunjobi – the one-eyed monstrous bandit who terrorised Southwest  Nigeria for over a decade.

Written by Michael Orodare for Neusroom
Additional reporting by Folayan Adejoke

10 April 2021

When the history of crime is told in Nigeria, names like Lawrence Anini and Ishola Oyenusi would top the long list of the most notorious criminals that ever lived.

There are of course many others, with most of them dominating regions and having short reigns. Take Abiodun Egunjobi aka Abbey Godogodo, the hefty bad man who forced himself into national limelight.

The Man Abbey Godogodo

Nigeria has suffered and overcome big crimes. Oyenusi in the 1970s, Anini in the 1980s, Shina Rambo in the 1990s. Their atrocities didn’t last more than five years. But the reign of Abbey Godogodo in the early 2000s was one of the biggest and longest runs of terror in the history of the former British colony.

While those before him captured and terrorised two to three states, Godogodo traversed the six states in the South West including Kwara and Kogi States, visiting terror on his victims. This placed him at the top of the Lagos State Police Command’s list of most wanted criminals for more than a decade.
https://features.neusroom.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/gatankowa-slum-lagos-abeokuta-expressway-neusroom.jpeg

An aerial view of the Gatankowa slum, along Lagos-Abeokuta Expressway,
home to scrap dealers and an incubator for criminals. Photo: Google Earth.

Born in Atan, Ogun State in 1977, Godogodo, which means ‘hefty man’, took to crime after absconding from his parent’s home to live in Gatankowa, a slum in Abule-Egba, a suburb of Lagos.

Here, he sold alcohol and cigarettes for survival and would later meet a gang of robbers who kept their bag of guns with him.

“When they lost one of their gang members, I was co-opted into the gang but I wasn’t satisfied with what they were giving me after each operation, so I joined another gang,” Godogodo told Crime Fighters, in Setember 2013.

He was thus inspired to form his own gang; growing to become one of the most notorious robbers ever, wreaking havoc across entire southwestern Nigeria. 

One of his most brutal operations was on Sunday, September 9, 2012, when his gang unleashed terror on Agege, Ikeja, and other parts of Lagos killing policemen and residents after robbing bureau de change operators in Agege.

Abiodun ‘Godogodo’ Ogunjobi agege 2012

Godogodo carried out one of his most vicious attacks
in Agege in 2012.
Photo: Daily Post.

We robbed from shop to shop and we also shot sporadically to scare people. We shot at people who tried to block the road and prevent us from moving,” he told Crime Fighters after his arrest.

For more than a decade, the one-eyed robbery kingpin wreaked havoc across the southwest, killing many police officers and carting away their rifles. He lost count of how many he killed.

Godogodo lost one an eye after an operation at Ijoko, Ogun State, in 2009 during a gun battle with members of the O’dua Peoples Congress (OPC), a local vigilante group in southwest Nigeria.

“Bullet hit one of my eyes. It was at Ijoko, Ogun State, four years ago,” he told Daily Independent in August 2013 after his arrest. 

“I don’t know the particular area in Ijoko but it was about 8 pm. when we were operating in a residential area. We were six armed robbers. In that operation, we got money, phones and a laptop computer before O’dua Peoples Congress (OPC) vigilantes blocked us. It was during the shootout between my gang and the OPC men that I was injured”.

Abiodun ‘Godogodo’ Ogunjobi gun battle with opc

Godogodo lost an eye in a gun battle with OPC members in 2009.

He continued to sustain gunshot wounds. But for security reasons, he did not treat the injuries in Nigerian hospitals. Gogogodo travelled to the Republic of Benin, the home of one of his three wives to treat his wounds.

Unlike other men in his class who took to alcohol and drugs to cover up for their cowardice, Godogodo said he denied himself certain pleasures.

“I do not smoke, I do not drink like other robbers, I do not live a flamboyant life like others, I do not wear expensive dresses and gold chains like others, even though the money was there. I do not use expensive cars like others and I do not go to parties and nightclubs,” he said.

He had discretion and was extremely careful. But he was a thief and murderer who would eventually get caught. 

Once arrested, Godogodo confessed to his numerous crimes and made revelations that proved to be sensational. “Once I come to a church, I donate to the church like buying musical instruments for them or providing any of their needs and leave. I would not come to the church again and this was to avoid being caught.”

Godogodo met his waterloo on August 1, 2013, when he was arrested at his home in Ibadan by operatives of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), led by Abba Kyari. His arrival at the Police headquarters in Ikeja sparked wild jubilation.
abiodun godogodo ogunjobi arrested in 2013

Police parade armed robber Abiodun ‘Godogodo’ Egunjobi after his arrest.

According to him, he was restless on the day he was arrested and decided to sit outside his house. Unknown to him, the police had laid siege on the area. 

“That morning, my wife called me to come and have breakfast, but I was just restless, I couldn’t eat. I went to sit outside the building where I was just thinking about my life when one of the residents in my neighbourhood came to seek financial support, as we were talking, I saw a Toyota Sienna drive to the other end of the street, ordinarily, I don’t wait whenever I see a Sienna, because I believe it is used by police.

“While I was still outside, I just saw two men walking in my direction, suddenly I saw just one, the other went into hiding, I became suspicious that they were policemen and I made moves to run away.”

Godogodo said while he was trying to escape, the policeman on his trail started firing shots at him, “I knew it was over when one of the bullets entered through my back and came out from my chest, then I started pleading with him not to kill me”.

Abba Kyari, a deputy commissioner of police, now heads the Inspector General of Police’s Intelligence Response Team (IRT).
abba kyari a deputy commisioner of police

Abba Kyari, a deputy commissioner of police, has brought down
many high-profile criminals in the last decade. Photo: Facebook

Reports of Godogodo’s arrest were the major stories on the front pages of national dailies on August 2, 2013, a day after his arrest.

“Godogodo, S-West robbery czar nabbed, says no regrets for killing policemen,” said the Vanguard headline read.

Daily Trust newspaper’s headline read: “Godogodo: End of road for ‘most wanted robber”.

In a reign of terror spanning more than 10 years, he invested his loots in real estate and agriculture. Before his arrest, he built more than six houses in Ikorodu, Lagos, Ilaro, and Ifo in Ogun State, Ibadan in Oyo State, and had 52 fish ponds which served as the coverup as his means of livelihood.

He claimed none of his three wives or his parents were aware he was into armed robbery. His last wife, Mary Egunjobi who was arrested along with him also claimed she never knew Godogodo was into robbery. They had been  married for three years.

When he was arrested in August 2013, he was detained at the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) in Ikeja, Lagos. Seven years later, there is little information about his trial or whereabouts.

An August 2019 post on the Facebook page of DCP Abba Kyari listed Godogodo’s case among the ‘60 achievements of Kyari’ and said it is ‘under prosecution’. But reports about the prosecution are shrouded in suspicious secrecy.

Request for information by Neusroom on Godogodo’s trial from the spokesperson of the Lagos State Police Command, Muyiwa Adejobi, in December 2020, did not get a response.

Multiple inquiries on Godogodo from the Police authorities since December 2020 have either been ignored or evaded.

Adejobi, who promised to check his records and revert, has stopped responding to calls and text messages from Neusroom correspondents.

Several calls to his phone between December 2020 and March 31, 2021, have not been answered.

Repeated efforts to reach Godogodo’s family members and also trace the area the Police said he was arrested in Ibadan met a dead end. 

The Public Relations Officer of the Nigerian Correctional Service (NCoS), Lagos State Command, Supt. Rotimi Oladokun, could also not be reached.

When Neusroom called his line on Wednesday, March 31, 2021, the receiver claimed Oladokun forgot his phone at home while leaving for the office earlier in the day.

Repeated calls and messages to Oladokun’s phone on Thursday April 1, 2021, were not answered.

A source at the Lagos State Directorate of Public Prosecution (DPP), however, told Neusroom on Tuesday, April 6, 20201, that the DPP does not have any record on Godogodo’s prosecution.

The DPP is responsible for the issuance of legal advice on case files sent by the police, instituting prosecution against defendants, and prosecution of criminal cases at both the High Courts and the Magistrate Courts. But its records show that the Police did not institute any prosecution against Godogodo since 2013 when he was arrested.

“We have checked from 2013 till date, no case file with that name [Abiodun Egunjobi],” said the source who would not like to be mentioned.

With multiple tales of torture and extrajudicial killings allegedly perpetrated by SARS operatives across the country in the last two decades, there are insinuations that Godogodo may have been executed by SARS operatives without trial.

Share this story:

3 Comments

Leave a Reply