The name Ishola Oyenusi is inseparable from Nigeria’s early history of armed robbery. Active in Lagos during the late 1960s and early 1970s, Oyenusi and his gang became notorious for violent assaults and robberies. Newspapers quickly turned him into a symbol of criminal fear in post-war Nigeria, though later retellings often exaggerated his exploits.
Contrary to popular myths, Oyenusi was not the leader of a highly sophisticated, transnational syndicate. His gang was violent, feared, and reckless, but their operations were crude by modern standards. Media sensationalism inflated the number of robberies attributed to him, making it difficult to separate fact from legend.
On 8 September 1971, Oyenusi was publicly executed at Lagos Bar Beach before tens of thousands of spectators. His death marked the first high-profile use of public execution to deter crime after the Nigerian Civil War. This spectacle was part of the government’s response to the rise of violent robbery, which had grown rapidly after 1970.
Post-Civil War Nigeria and the Spread of Crime.
The end of the Nigerian Civil War (1967–70) created conditions that worsened insecurity. Thousands of demobilised soldiers, coupled with the influx of weapons from the war, contributed to a surge in violent crime. In 1970, armed robbery was officially made a capital offence, with executions carried out publicly at Bar Beach to deter offenders.
Yet public executions did not halt the rise of violent crime. The oil boom of the 1970s enriched elites but widened inequalities, leaving many unemployed and resentful. Armed robbery flourished in both urban centres and highways, making travel and commerce dangerous.
Economic Crisis and the 1980s–90s Robbery Era.
By the 1980s, Nigeria entered an economic downturn. The Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP), imposed under IMF guidance, worsened poverty and unemployment. This climate provided fertile ground for violent crime.
Highway robbery became a defining feature of this period. Criminals attacked night buses, luxury coaches, and traders transporting goods across states. These gangs often operated with crude but effective ambush tactics, blocking roads, brandishing weapons, and overwhelming poorly equipped police units.
While some media reports described them as highly sophisticated, most of these gangs relied on simple organisation and locally sourced weapons. Their strength lay not in technology but in exploiting Nigeria’s weak policing and judicial systems.
Early Kidnapping Cases in the 1990s.
Though not yet widespread, kidnapping for ransom began to appear in the 1990s. Wealthy businessmen, expatriates, and sometimes politicians were targeted. These early abductions were largely opportunistic rather than systemic, but they set a precedent that would later evolve into a national crisis.
At the same time, armed robbery was still rampant. The Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) was formed in the mid-1990s as part of the police effort to combat the scourge. Initially, SARS achieved some successes against robbers, but over time it developed a reputation for extrajudicial killings, torture, and corruption, factors that would later spark the #EndSARS protests of 2020.
The 2000s: The Rise of Kidnapping for Ransom.
By the 2000s, Nigeria’s criminal landscape shifted. Kidnapping overtook robbery as the most lucrative crime.
In the Niger Delta, militant groups such as MEND (Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta) used hostage-taking to pressure the government and oil companies. Foreign oil workers and contractors became frequent targets. While their rhetoric was political, ransom payments became central to funding their activities.
This model soon spread outside the Delta. Criminal gangs across the South-East and South-South began to kidnap wealthy Nigerians and businessmen. Unlike the Niger Delta militants, these groups operated purely for financial gain.
Despite later claims of “cyber-kidnapping rings,” most gangs relied on basic tools, mobile phones for communication and cash transactions for ransom. Their effectiveness came not from advanced technology but from Nigeria’s weak security structures, poor intelligence networks, and the complicity of informants within communities.
The 2010s to the Present: Nationwide Kidnapping Crisis.
From the 2010s onwards, kidnapping spread into northern Nigeria. Boko Haram, originally an Islamist insurgent movement, used mass abductions such as the Chibok schoolgirls’ case in 2014 to gain global attention. Alongside insurgents, criminal gangs in states such as Zamfara, Kaduna, and Katsina began large-scale kidnappings for ransom.
This wave of insecurity became worse with the rise of “banditry” in the northwest, where heavily armed groups attacked villages, abducted civilians, and demanded ransoms. Unlike the opportunistic kidnappings of earlier decades, these operations became industrial in scale, sometimes involving hundreds of captives.
Public perception of Nigerian criminal groups as globally networked cyber-criminals is partly a myth. While Nigeria is home to online fraud networks (“Yahoo boys”), the kidnapping gangs that terrorise highways and rural areas remain largely localised, relying on AK-47s and motorcycles rather than digital sophistication.
Author’s Note.
From Oyenusi’s gang in the 1970s to today’s kidnappers, certain continuities remain clear. Poverty, unemployment, inequality, and weak state institutions have consistently fuelled Nigeria’s crime waves. The proliferation of arms, first after the Civil War, and later through smuggling across porous borders, has made violence accessible to non-state actors.
Public executions at Bar Beach may have been intended as deterrents, but they failed to address the socio-economic roots of crime. Similarly, harsh policing tactics under SARS created more resentment than security.
Today, crime in Nigeria continues to evolve. Armed robbery has declined in visibility compared to the 1970s–90s, but kidnapping has become the nation’s most feared crime. Its endurance reflects not sophistication, but systemic weaknesses that successive governments have struggled to resolve.
References
l Tamuno, T.N. Peace and Violence in Nigeria. Ibadan: University of Ibadan Press, 1991.
Okoli, A.C. & Agada, F.T. “Kidnapping for ransom in Nigeria: Characterisation and policy implications.” Social Sciences Journal, 2014.
Alemika, E.E.O. “Criminal Victimisation and Fear of Crime in Lagos Metropolis, Nigeria.” CLEEN Foundation Monograph Series, 2003.
