LATEST UPDATE:
Gen Benjamin Adekunle dies at 78Retired Gen Benjamin Adekunle, popularly known as ‘Black Scorpion’ is dead. He was aged 78.
He died yesterday morning in Lagos, according to his wife, Folake.
Born on June 23, 1936 in Kaduna, Adekunle served in the Nigerian Army from 1958- 1974.
In the history of the Nigerian Army, and indeed that of Nigeria, the name Benjamin Adesanya Maja Adekunle shines like a star. The exploits of the former military general nicknamed Black Scorpion are all too well known.
His activities as the Commander of the 35,000 strong Third Marine Commando (3MC) earned him a chip as one of the most popular military commanders during the 30-month Nigeria civil war, apart from Obasanjo, who succeeded him and brought the war to an end with the same 3MC.
That ‘Black Scorpion’ was the most controversial, celebrated and mythologized figure in the war is a statement of fact. ‘I did not want this war, but I want to win this war,” he was quoted as saying.
Born on June 26, 1936 in Kaduna to Thomas Adekunle, an Ogbomoso father and Amina Theodora, a Bachama mother, young Adekunle had his primary and secondary education at Zaria and Okene respectively. The old Adekunle had the lady in her hometown Numan, during one of his sojourns to the Adamawa Province and were married in 1919.
General Adekunle’s sojourn in the Nigerian Army began in 1957 shortly after his school certificate examination. For a boy whose father and grandfather had served in the colonial army, the young Adekunle was merely treading on familiar terrain. Despite his petit size, he easily impressed the recruiting team.
“The first hurdle in my chosen career was the stiff entrance examination. At the succeeding interview, numerous white-headed expatriate military officers gave me the grilling of my life. The Nigerian army was then in its infancy and placed every conceivable impediment to dissuade aspirants from making the army a career. These obstacles did not daunt me. We were then made to undergo physical exercises. I found these exercises hilarious. I was given size 12 boots (I take a size 6); and oversized clothing. For a joke, I put them on and appeared at the venue to the vast amusement of the other boys. Notwithstanding my deficiency in size, the Army accepted me.”
And that marked the commencement of a glorious career in the military in which he not only distinguished himself, but also rose to the pinnacle.
To kick-start his career, he was dispatched to the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst as an Officer Cadet. On December 15, 1960, he received his commission as Second Lieutenant.
“My first unit was the first Queen’s Own Nigerian Regiment based in Enugu. At this time, a good number of the senior officers were British, though there was a sprinkling of Nigerian officers and one Cameroonian.”
After a few months, he was posted to the Republic of the Congo under the auspices of the United Nations, to quell the growing unrest there.
In an interview he granted a national daily, he recalled that “just as I settled down to learn more about my environment in the Congo, I was bundled home to Enugu to become the first Army officer Aide-de-camp to Sir Francis Akanu Ibiam, the first Governor of the Eastern Region.”
That was in 1962. He spent only a few months as ADC and left his posting as ADC without orders as a result of what he termed ‘irreconcilable differences.’
In May 1965, and as a substantive Lt. Colonel, he was appointed Adjutant-General of Army Headquarters, a post he held for a few months.
In late 1966, Lt. Col Adekunle was posted to the Lagos Garrison from where he was assigned to lead a historic two-battalion amphibious assault on Bonny on July 26, 1968, after the outbreak of the civil war. The Bonny landing was such a success that Adekunle was promoted to the rank of Colonel.
The success of Adekunle’s battalions in Ikot Ekpene, Burutu, Escravos, Urhonigbe and Owa led the Army to secondment of one of his battalions, (the 6th Battalion under the leadership of Major Gibson Jalo) to Murtala Mohammed’s 2nd Division. This development did not go well with Adekunle. Having to lead the remaining battalion from Escravos felt like a demotion for which he protested to Army Headquarters. At his insistence, the Lagos Garrison was upgraded to a brigade and composed as part of a new Division. Hence, the newly formed 3rd Infantry Division was composed of the Lagos Garrison and the 31 and 32 Battalions.
According to his biography, The Nigeria-Biafra Letters; A Soldier’s Story, Colonel Adekunle did not think the name “3 Infantry Division” was sensational enough nor did it project the nature of the unique terrain in which his men had to fight. And so, without formal approval from Army Headquarters, he renamed the division, the 3 Marine Commando (3MCDO)
The Black Scorpion won the admiration of his men in and out of battle. Many of those alive today remember him for his active participation beyond the war planning room. Many would easily agree that he was a ‘dogged fighter’. And, his achievements during the war singled him out as the most mythologized military figure in Nigeria’s history.
Succeeded at his command of the 3 Marine Commando by Colonel Olusegun Obasanjo, the Black Scorpion and his men were largely responsible for a unity that Nigeria struggled so hard to keep today.
He was promoted to Brigadier in 1972. After the war, Adekunle was put in charge of decongesting the Lagos port that was having a chronic problem of clearing imported goods. He held the position until he was compulsorily retired on August 20, 1974.
The post Gen Benjamin Adekunle dies at 78 appeared first on The Sun News.
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