Ishola Oyenusi: The notorious robber who boasted to police he would escape before execution

In the late 1960 to early 1970s, before Ishola Oyenusi began his illicit armed robbery trade that kept residents and security operatives awake, Lagos knew relative peace with very scarce cases of armed robbery in the city. But the peace soon became history when Oyenusi dipped his feet into the armed robbery business terrorising Lagos and other southwest states.

In the history of crime in Nigeria, Ishola Oyenusi’s name aka ‘Dr Rob and Kill’ can never be erased. He was a daredevil armed robber and expert at what he did.  If robbery was a course in an institution, Oyenusi would probably graduate with a first class degree and would likely be retained as a lecturer in the faculty to pass on his knowledge to those behind him.
Abubakar Tsav, a former Lagos Commissioner of Police who was an Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) in Lagos during the notorious days of Oyenusi told The Punch in March 2020 that “he (Oyenusi) was an expert robber and was ruthless and very notorious because that was the first time we experienced a case of armed robbery”.

Tsav is no doubt at a vantage position to paint the picture of the ruthlessness of Oyenusi having witnessed, first hand, the days of his reign of terror as a police officer. He was only comparable to Lawrence Anini who confined his reign of terror to Bendel State (present day Edo and Delta states).

He specialised in carjacking, robbing banks and factories, armed with native charms and weapons – Dane guns and the rest, the lives of his victims had no value to him, he wasted them at will in the most gruesome manner after dispossessing them of their valuables. During one of his several expeditions, Oyenusi was said to have attacked a factory in Ikeja in March 1971, killing a police officer on guard and carted away £28,000 (the official currency at that time). During another deadly operation, Oyenusi was said to have dispossessed a man of his car along Herbert Macaulay Road in Yaba, Lagos, shot him dead and sold the vehicle for £400 then gave the proceeds to his girlfriend.

Though he had no medical training, he preferred to be called ‘doctor’. The perception at that time was that he was invincible and possessed some mystical powers that could make him appear anywhere when his name was mentioned, this created fears in the mind of the people and even security operatives who avoided mentioning his name.

“Some policemen were afraid of him. Many of them were scared of mentioning his name,” Tsav said. “They thought he could suddenly appear in their midst with the mention of his name.”

After evading arrests at different times, the law finally caught up with Oyenusi in 1971 when he was arrested, tried before the Military tribunal and executed by firing squad on September 8, 1971 with his gang members at the Lagos Bar Beach. Thousands of residents gathered at the beach to watch the end of the man whose name and presence in the neighbourhood brought palpable fear, sorrow, tears and blood.

Up to the point of his execution, Oyenusi was so confident it was not the end of the road for him. “When he was arrested, he kept on boasting that he would escape and that was why he was kept under strict security watch,” Tsav said. “He believed he had mystical powers that could make him disappear, and that if we shot him, the bullet would not penetrate.”

He missed it, at that point all the charms he depended on failed him, it was clear that whatever grass the charm was made of had withered and the flowers had faded, it was all over for the man who threw many homes into mourning and turned many into sudden widows, orphans and widowers. It was a sad end for Oyenusi, but the beginning of relief for the populace and end to a reign of terror.

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“Oyenusi smiles to his death,” read the lead story on the front page of Daily Times newspaper the morning after his execution.

Despite his public execution alongside other members of his gang, the fear of Oyenusi did not clear off easily in the land, it was so prevalent at that time that in 1977, six years after his death, no actor was willing to play his role in a movie by veteran movie director, Eddie Ugbomah, titled “The Rise and Fall of Dr. Oyenusi”.

“Everyone feared retribution from the “Dr.s” gang, so the director played the role (of Oyenusi) himself,” Frank Ukadike wrote in his book “Black African Cinema”.

37 years later, Nollywood actor, Odunlade Adekola, made another attempt at retelling Oyenusi’s story. This time without any fear of retribution, ‘Oyenusi’ was released in 2014 to tell the story of the life and atrocities of the dreaded armed robber. The movie was a huge success.

Though his life and atrocities have been adapted into movies, Oyenusi lived a far more ruthless life than Nollywood could depict him.