He was one of the most misunderstood persons who ever lived. Throughout his life, he was human, a spirit, a bigot, a murderer, a conqueror, a hero, a pariah, a wretch, a myth, a thief, a buccaneer, an inspiration, a conspirator, a soldier as liberator, a soldier as mercenary, a soldier of destiny.
When he died, many shed tears. Many who shed tears were his colleagues who saw the tempest of battle with him. But his plight many years before his death should have drawn tears from the same colleagues now shedding tears. The tears of the big-jawed reptile with intimidating scales. But they scoffed at him. He was poor, lacking meat and succour. But they would not help him. They would not visit him. They would not make a case for him. They waited for the extravagance of death. When death stalked, they balked. At last it came as it must, and it came in its sad plenitude. His colleagues poured out the outrageous liberality of their encomiums. They gave him in death what he wanted in life. Old age does not abide poverty. In Tennessee William’s play about how capitalism destroys family bonds titled Cat on a hot tin roof, a character says one can be young without money but you should not be old without money. That is why Western economies guard social welfare programmes. It informed Governor Kayode Fayemi’s now underappreciated programme.
He was a great general, a special talent, a commander of men, they are saying. Not that he had no fault of his own. But he fought that this country may be one.
He was in charge of the 3rd Marine Commando, a special name he coined for his division. He was one of the triumvirates that fought the civil war on the Nigerian side. General Murtala Muhammed handled the second division, while Shuwa held the first. It is an irony that the man most vilified by the Igbos of the three was this man who just died. He is thought to be the pre-eminent hater’s hater. He could not stand an Igbo man. He was killing them in droves, the civilians and soldiers. His heart was steeped in ice.
Is that not why they called him black scorpion? He preyed on Igbo blood for his breath of life. Yet if you read your history well, you know that this man never fought in Igbo land. He never, in all the 30 months of battle, stepped on Igboland. He launched his battle in the epic Bonny landing, and his division took clan after clan, town after town, creek after creek, city after city, culminating in the fall of Port Harcourt. Irony still, Colonel Benjamin Adekunle spent much of the time in Lagos, seeking men and materiel. When he was in the Niger Delta, he was hardly in the theatre of war.
Yet he is more demonised than Muhammed and Shuwa, whose divisions made mincemeat of human dignity in the senseless slaughter of Igbos. Shuwa and Muhammed competed for infamy. Shuwa had no strategy of war. He roamed Biafra like a roaring lion, sacking towns instead of soldiers, his men killed and raped civilians at will. Muhammed’s division conducted rapine and slaughter, not only of Igbos but subjected his own soldiers to savage risks on the River Niger Bridge. The Asaba massacre of Igbos, a veritable war crime, took place on Muhammed’s watch. Shuwa unnecessarily created panic and refugees in Igboland.
Adekunle, working with astute men like Alabi Isama and Akinrinade, carried surgical operations. But it was not as if he did not have his flaws. His rhetoric during the war did not help the Black Scorpion. He voiced contemptible language that he would not spare the Igbos, etc. It is the kind of rhetoric called trash talk in American sports. But it was inappropriate in war. One of the paradoxes of modern warfare is that we have instituted urban etiquette in the midst of barbarism. All war is barbarous, yet we force some courtesies on ourselves. Civility in barbarism, the Geneva Convention. Adekunle’s lips loosed themselves in filth when he boasted he would deliver OAU to Gowon ahead of the OAU (Organisation of African Unity) summit. The OAU he wanted to deliver were three key Biafran towns. O stood for Owerri, A for Aba and U for Umuahia. Gowon fired him before he ever stepped his boots on Igboland. Yet he should have used civilised language about his intentions. It is on record though that 3rd Marine Commando did not maltreat the Biafrans they captured. From Alabi Isama’s book, The Tragedy of Victory, backed by pictures and documents, we know that captured Igbos were either allowed to return to Igbo land or were absorbed and retrained by the 3rd Marine Commando. So Adekunle was engaged in vaporous rhetoric. His bark sinned against him. It made him a primitive biter.
Yet, we know that his successes got into his head. War commanders suffer such vanities. President Truman recalled MacArthur when he would not subject himself to civilian authority. Hitler also dislodged Rommel from the North African front for defiance. He was mistaking himself for the war.
According to Isama’s book and authenticated by Akinrinade, the black Scorpion plotted an ambush to kill both men near Port Harcourt. Adekunle thought the profiles of both men were getting too big for him.
Yet, without a doubt, he was the best leader in the civil war. He fought in the most difficult theatre. And it was his division that ultimately secured the surrender, although Obasanjo took the credit.
Yet this man lived most of his life after he left the army in distress. The only time I met him was in the late 1980’s. He still lived in relative comfort. He said good things about Babangida, so I presumed that IBB’s regime was good to him. But subsequently, stories about him showed he suffered, and suffered abjectly. It became worse in the last few years when he needed medical care.
In his book launched last year, Isama cried for him, asked for attention to come to him. He never enjoyed it. His fellow officers, some of them who still live in great affluence, distanced themselves from him.
He became a pariah. He fought because he was called to service. He was a human who became a fierce man of battle. He was just carrying out his duty as a soldier. When Americans protested against the Vietnam War, the civilians sometimes misdirected their anger at the soldiers who were caught in duty. In their book, We Were Soldiers Once…and Young, Hal Moore and Joe Galloway wrote about their risks and near death experiences in North Vietnam. But he lamented he did not do it because he hated the Vietnamese. He was doing it because he had to as a soldier. It was like the poem of W. B. Yeats, in which a soldier laments that “those that I fight I do not hate/ those that I guard I do not love”.
Soldiery by definition has no innocence. Sainthood belongs elsewhere. Maybe Adekunle’s sin was that he was a good soldier. If he was, he was also human. In my childhood days, I heard tales of him making disappearing acts, waving away bullets aimed at him, fighting without a gun, etc. When I presented these tales to him, he laughed and dismissed them. People fill voids with mythologies. That is how many gods are born.
Adekunle’s tragedy is that many people failed to see him as human. Yet he died the most human death. The foible of history is that, now that he is dead, he may never be human again.
More poignant for me is that this man fought to keep Nigeria one. Today with MEND, BOKO HARAM, OPC, MASSOB, did he fritter away his goodwill, youth and life on a hopeless project? I hope not.
