5. ‘BLACK SCORPION’ BENJAMIN ADEKUNLE
“I do not want to see any Red Cross, and Caritas, any World Council of Churches, Pope, Mission, or UN delegation. I want to prevent even one Ibo having even one piece to eat before their capitulation
“I have learned a word from the British, which is ‘sorry’! That’s how I want to respond to your question. I did not want this war but I want to win this war. Therefore I have to kill the Ibos. Sorry! The End”.
That was Benjamin Adekunle speaking in a wartime interview with Randolph Baumann.
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These words heightened war time tension in the country when they were published by Stern Magazine in 1968, in the heat of the Nigerian civil war.
Adekunle was a mercurial man; he was seen as a villain in some quarters and a hero in some other quarters. He was a leader of the Nigerian 7th and 8th division of the Nigerian army against Biafra, during the civil war.
Black Scorpion, as he was later known, was the commander of the Lagos Garrison as substantive lieutenant colonel before the civil war. He spoke the three major languages in Nigeria fluently.
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Adekunle, 78, died on September 13, and was buried as a brigadier-general and war hero.
1 comments
Thank you TheCable for the carefully selected and renderred account of the above fallen heroes of not iust Nigeria but all Humanity and God’s children.
May we all have the courage to glean from their lives and stand up for righteousness as they did while our lives are still with us.