10:48 PM
IN February 2012, a gang of heavily armed robbers
attacked the Murtala Muhammed International
Airport, Ikeja.
They carted away N700 million from a bureau de
change operator. Each member, including the
informant, a cart pusher at the airport, got
N90million, an amount that could have turned their
lives around. But barely one year after that operation,
Felix Sunday, a.k.a. K-Money, a native of Delta State
became broke and went back to robbery.
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.
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.
The Ikeja airport robbery gang with their box of
rifles and charms
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.
Felix Sunday… wasted his N90
million robbery proceeds
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.
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."
Sent from my BlackBerry wireless device from MTN
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