Shina Rambo – The robbery kingpin who vanished in 1992 and resurfaced as a preacher years after

From the history of robbery in Nigeria, one would observe that every decade from 1970 produced a robbery kingpin who put the security operatives on their toes. Nigeria graduated from the era of Ishola Oyenusi in the 1970s to Lawrence Anini in the 1980s, Shina Rambo in the 1990s, and Abiodun Ogunjobi aka Godogodo gave the millennials a feel of the reign of terror in the early 2000s.

These men had something in common: they were all in their 20s when they took to crime and after the arrest and execution of one, another emerged as if he had been understudying the one executed.

Just when the nation was beginning to enjoy relative peace after the death of Anini in March 1987, a new wave of robberies returned to Lagos highways in the early 1990s. It was spearheaded by a trans-border robbery kingpin, Shina Rambo, who terrorised car owners on Lagos and Ogun highways.

Like those before him, Shina’s reign generated a lot of buzz in the media and subjected residents of the two states to unimaginable torture.

The Story of Shina Rambo

He gave his year of birth as 1958, and said he was born in Abeokuta, Ogun State, but was raised in Benin city, the home of Anini. Not known to have acquired any formal education, his father was a military officer and Shina is believed to have picked the name ‘Rambo’ from a Hollywood film featuring Sylvester Stallone, who played the role of a war veteran and was constantly raining bullets on opponents.

Shina Rambo was never reported to have raided homes or banks like Anini and Oyenusi who were professional carjackers and bank robbers. Photo: YouTube/IntegrityTV. 

A report published in Tell magazine in 2003, however, said:

“it was reliably gathered that Shina Rambo, the robber who once held Lagos and its environs by the jugular in the early ’90s acquired the name from an incident that happened at Okokomaiko, Badagry Road, on the outskirts of Lagos.”

Paul Osifodunrin in his Ph.D. thesis on ‘Violent Crimes in Lagos, 1861-2000: Nature, Response and Impact,’ published in 2007, revealed that in the first two weeks of October 1992, the Lagos State Police Command recorded about 200 robbery cases with about 115 Peugeot cars, Mercedes Benz and Nissan Pathfinders stolen.

Shina and his boys were believed to be responsible for most of those thefts and throughout that period, his true identity was shrouded in mystery.

“Some police officers believed that the Shina Rambo affair was a myth,” Osifodunrin wrote. “The Police Public Relations Officer, Lagos State Command in 1994, Isaac Akinmoyede opined that the Shina myth ‘was probably cooked up by the press because three members of the gang bore the name ‘Shina’.”

While the Police were in denial of Shina Rambo’s existence, his reign of impunity continued for almost two years. Lagos and Ogun States were his operational base but he resided in the Republic of Benin which shares borders with the two states.

His Mode of Operation

Shina Rambo in a live radio interview with Nigerian musician and entrepreneur Yinka Ayefele, on Sunday, November 8, 2020. Photo: Facebook/FreshFM.

Shina Rambo was never reported to have raided homes or banks like Anini and Oyenusi who were professional carjackers and bank robbers. He specialised in hijacking exotic cars. To carry out his operation, he was reputed to have an array of beautiful ladies used to trap his victims.

According to reports, “the ladies were always neatly and corporately dressed and adopted a very simple but effective strategy. They would walk up to a victim and tell them ‘Baba ni ko fun mi ni kokoro moto yin’ (Baba requests that you hand in your car keys)”.

Once the request was made on the usually bewildered victim, a gun was drawn to enforce it while the lady would point to Rambo, usually in a jeep and other members of his gang in other stolen cars. At other times, cars were snatched at gunpoint and those who dared to resist were killed after which Shina and his convoy of stolen cars would drive across the Nigerian border into the Republic of Benin where they disposed of the cars to other countries like Burkina Faso.

He was said to have his way around the border and treated some of the border officers well to avoid any form of hindrance. As expected, numerous myths flew around the city about Shina, and one of the most popular was that he used to carry a live tortoise on his chest during his raids. This has not been confirmed.

An Encounter with Shina Rambo

Ever imagined what it means to encounter a widely acclaimed dare-devil robber you’ve always heard about in the news? A couple told Neusroom the story of their encounter with Shina Rambo in the early 1990s.

According to the couple who would not like to be mentioned, they were travelling from Ilorin, Kwara state, to Ogbomoso in Oyo state when they ran into a robbery gang believed to have been led by Shina Rambo.

“As we were approaching a village on the outskirts of Ilorin, a car coming from Ibadan end of the highway suddenly crossed a part of the road and ordered us to stop.
“As the armed robbers alighted from their car, my husband sped off before they walked close to us. They started shooting sporadically, we escaped unhurt but our blue Mazda 929 was hit by the bullets.”

The couple said after reporting the case at Ote Police station, about 15 minutes drive from Ilorin, the Police refused to go to the scene, claiming they don’t have the kind of weapon with the robbers.

“While we were at the Ote police station, other travelers who had been robbed met us there to report how they were molested and robbed,” the couple said.

But what gave them the conviction that the robber they met on the highway was Shina Rambo?
The couple told Neusroom that when they returned to Ilorin, they heard reports that Shina Rambo and his gang wreaked havoc on some parts of Lagos and raided major highways from Lagos to Jebba on the same day they narrowly escaped from the robbery scene.

“It was when we returned to Ilorin that we heard the news that the robbery gang we met on the highway was led by Shina Rambo and there were reports that he had attacked in Lagos before heading to Ilorin that day.”

The arrest of Journalist over Rambo

Toye Akinrinlola recounted in ‘Folu: Epitome of Perseverance’, how the Nigerian Tribune editor Folu Olamiti was arrested in Ibadan by plainclothes security operatives on December 30, 1992, over a frontpage story in the newspaper the previous day with the headline “Shina Rambo Castrates Two Policemen.” The news report said that two police officers were shot between the legs during an encounter with Shina Rambo.

His ‘arrest’ and disappearance:

“In my attempt to acquire voodoo power, I went to a total of 21 places, I possessed a total of 901 power images that can be used to cajole or disappear at a scene of a crime,” he said. Photo: Nairaland.

After terrorising Lagos and Ogun for almost two years, Shina was reportedly arrested in Porto Novo, the Republic of Benin by gendarmes (paramilitary officers in the French-speaking country) on December 30, 1992.

There were reports that his extradition process to Nigeria was delayed and perhaps never effected. The Nigeria Police Force also accused the Beninois authorities of blocking Shina’s extradition to Nigeria after announcing his arrest.

While the blame game went on, other up-and-coming robbers impersonated Shina to unleash terror in the city.

Nigerians soon forgot about Shina Rambo and in the last 28 years, his name only appeared in news articles and history classes as a reference point of terror, until he resurfaced in public again on Sunday, November 8, 2020, in a live radio interview with Nigerian musician and entrepreneur Yinka Ayefele, where he announced that he is now a reformed man preaching the gospel.

He gave his name as Oluwasina Oluwagbemiga, which is slightly different from Olusegun Adeshina Adisa Kuye by which he was known in the 1990s. He confessed to being the same man whose gang terrorised Lagos and Ogun for years. He admitted that so many people, especially the police, would be surprised to hear that the same man they claimed to have killed on a number of occasions is still alive.

“In my attempt to acquire voodoo power, I went to a total of 21 places, prominent among which were Minna, Niger state, and later Oro, in present-day Kwara,” he told his interviewer, confirming the widespread myth about him. “I was in one of those places for 91 days in Idanre, Ondo state, where we were mandated to be sucking the milk of a possessed woman’s breast, as our only food and water, so occult powers can transmit to our body.”

“At the end of the whole exercise, I possessed a total of 901 power images that can be used to cajole or disappear at a scene of a crime and project the image of another person. So, if I was killed at a particular point, I had the powers to resurface in another place in another form,” Shina Rambo added.

Rambo said the death of his wife and three children in one single day at the hands of those who came to arrest him but did not meet him, was the worst regret of his former life of crime.
Efforts by Neusroom to speak with the ‘reformed’ Shina Rambo have been unsuccessful.

Will he ever face the law and have his day in court?