Nigerian True Crime: Principals and Principalities

In April 2019, Italian investigators hid a camera inside a cult initiation in Palermo, Sicily. What they filmed — a man stripped naked, beaten, sliced with razors, and forced to drink a mixture of his own tears, alcohol, and tapioca — became evidence in a case prosecutors called Operation No Fly Zone. The group behind it was founded in 1965 by seven idealistic students at the University of Ibadan...

On July 7, 1977, nine university students in Benin City led by anti colonialist ideals and a desire to unify and eradicate classism in their universities started a confraternity. They picked up a symbolic axe to break the chains of colonialism. Nearly fifty years later, that symbol belongs to one of the world's most powerful transnational criminal organizations — responsible for over 200 deaths in...

In 1990, a well-raised boy from a good family enrolled at the University of Ibadan. He was not poor. He was not desperate. He had every reason to walk a straight path and become someone great but instead, he took an oath, changed his name to Stone — and he became one of the most dangerous cultists his community had ever seen. In this episode of Principals & Principalities, host Ayomide Odubono...

On Sunday, September 9, 2012, a street in Agege, Lagos was turned into a war zone before noon. Bureau de change operators were shot on sight. A Rapid Response Squad van was ambushed and every officer inside killed. A policeman was chased down on foot, shot, and his rifle collected. The man who ordered it had been doing this — across eight states — for over a decade. His name was Abiodun Egunjobi....

In December 2000, 55 passengers on a Lagos-to-Onitsha bus were executed at Upper Iweka Road, Onitsha. The man who ordered it was 22 years old. His name was Okwudili Ndiwe — better known as Derico Nwamama — and he was already the most wanted criminal in Southeast Nigeria. In this episode of Principals & Principalities , host Ayomide Odubonojo-Kinoshi tells the full story of Derico Nwamama in An...

In the early 1990s, one name brought Southwest Nigeria to a standstill: Shina Rambo, : Nigeria's Most Feared Armed Robber. In this episode of Principals and Principalities , host Ayomide Odubonojo-Kinoshi tells the story of Olusegun Adeshina Adisa Kuye in Abeokuta, Ogun State, who became the most feared armed robber in modern Nigerian history — hijacking luxury cars in broad daylight, storming pol...

He robbed banks in expensive lace. He escaped from Kirikiri Maximum Security Prison. And on the day the Lagos firing squad came for him, he still showed up dressed in his signature attire. In this episode of Principals and Principalities , host Ayomide Odubonojo-Kinoshi tells the story of Babatunde Folorunso, aka Baba Oni Lace , the armed robber who became one of the most infamous criminals in Nig...

In 1986, one man brought Nigeria's Bendel State to its knees. Lawrence Anini — known as "The Law" — robbed banks in broad daylight, killed eleven police officers, ambushed a Police Commissioner, and evaded an entire nation for four terrifying months. But how? In this episode of Principals & Principalities, host Ayomide Odubonojo-Kinoshi unpacks the true story of Nigeria's mos...

In 1971, a 26-year-old armed robber named Ishola Oyenusi terrorised Lagos with a gang known as the Dangerous Seven — robbing banks, killing a police officer, and escaping prison so many times that Nigerians believed he walked through walls. But was "The Doctor" truly supernatural, or did he have powerful humans “Principals” inside Nigeria's police and military? In this premiere episode of Principa...

What really hides in Nigeria’s shadows? From forgotten political assassinations and colonial-era injustices to ritual killings whispered about in hushed tones… from money rituals and spirit possession to ogbanje myths, occult societies, and accusations of witchcraft — this podcast dives into the stories that sit at the uneasy crossroads of crime, belief, and power. Told in a gripping narrative sty...