[2] As a platoon commander, he served in Kasai Province of Congo with the 1st Battalion, Queen's Own Nigeria Regiment during his first ONUC UN peace keeping tour of duty.

He, therefore, protested to Army HQ and got the Lagos garrison upgraded to Brigade status through the creation of the 31 and 32 Battalions (under Majors Aliyu and Hamman, respectively).

The "Black Scorpion" as he came to be known, was easily the most controversial, celebrated and mythologized figure[citation needed] in the war of attrition that laid the foundations for Nigeria's contemporary crisis; and threw a wedge into the national fabric.

Benjamin "Adekunle's boys including Godwin Alabi-Isama who then is his Chief of Staff,[5] seized Escravos, Burutu, Urhonigbe, Owa and Aladima.

They captured Bomadi and Patani, Youngtown, Koko, Sapele, Ajagbodudu, Warri, Ughelli, Orerokpe, Umutu and Itagba".

After the war Adekunle was put in charge of decongesting the Lagos port that was having a chronic problem of clearing imported goods.

Adekunle led the Third Marine Commando Division with such great panache and determination that the foreign media, in looking for a human angle on the Biafran war, found him a ready source of news.