Where is Nnamdi Kanu?

Nnamdi Kanu

1. I hope that Nnamdi Kanu has not been seized by the Nigerian security authorities, executed and buried in secret. That would be an unacceptably barbaric and unconscionable act for which the perpetrators would be required to face justice.

2. I would be surprised to find out that Kanu had fled Nigeria given his rhetoric of the righteousness and justness of his cause. Fleeing would be tantamount to leaving his followers in the lurch. Deserting them. He is surely much too courageous to have done such a thing.

3. If he is still in Nigeria, it is rather surprising that he would remain quiet. I had imagined him as the fearless and defiant type who pimpernel like would be sending epistles to his pursuers, the Nigerian security services, chiding them for their inefficiency and “zoo”-like tendencies.

Where, I wonder, is Nnamdi Kanu?

© Adeyinka Makinde (2017)

Adeyinka Makinde is a writer based in London, England.

Trump and Iran

United States President Donald Trump is attempting to set the scene for attacking Iran by continuing with his pre-election mantra of the “bad deal”. Since his assumption of office, he has continually referred to the Iranian state as a “sponsor of terrorism” and has also made his designs clear by referring to Hezbollah, Iran’s ally in Lebanon, as a terrorist organisation responsible for the massacre of American troops in Lebanon in 1983. His decision not to re-certify the ‘Five Plus One’ Agreement is pivoting America towards an armed confrontation with Iran.

1. Ratcheting tensions with Iran is an unmistakable attempt aimed at setting up the United States to fight a war on behalf of Israel, and, it would be remiss not to note, Saudi Arabia, a country with which Israel has developed a symbiotic relationship. Iran has not invaded another country for around 200 years, is a signatory nation to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty with attendant inspections and in addition to this has consented to the multinational ‘Five Plus One’ Agreement. It is also useful to remind that the intelligence community of the United States and even Israel’s Mossad have concluded that Iran has no military objectives related to the acquisition of nuclear power. The Iranian leadership debated this and decided as long ago as the early or mid-2000s not to pursue the nuclear option.

It is a manufactured crisis.

By inflicting the first defeat in recent memory on the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), former President Barack Obama resisted the Israel-Jewish lobby’s insistence on using the United States to mount a military attack on Iran by reaching the ‘Five Plus One’ agreement. This came after a concerted effort by Binyamin Netanyahu to undermine Obama’s position by accepting an invitation from Republican members of congress to speak before America’s legislative body without the express approval of the serving president, an abrogation of established US constitutional convention.

2. Donald Trump recently tweeted a reminder of Hezbollah’s alleged responsibility for murdering US Marines in Lebanon back in 1983. Vice President Mike Pence joined in, but neither man mentioned any other atrocity allegedly instigated by Hezbollah since the period of time when Lebanese militias were resisting what they perceived as the occupation of their country by foreign military powers. The problem with this focus on Hezbollah as an instigator of terrorism is that most of the atrocities committed against the United States and other Western nations by Muslim organisations have been by those of the Sunni-Wahhabist stripe whose ideology emanates from America’s ally Saudi Arabia. These organisations have in fact been covertly used by the United States to harass, destabilise and overthrow America’s enemies in Chechnya (an anti-Russian endeavour), Syria and Libya.

While Trump and Pence invoke the name of Hezbollah in the killing of United States military personnel, neither man has ever publicly memorialised the American sailors who were deliberately murdered and maimed during an attack on the USS Liberty by the armed forces of the state of Israel in June 1967.

Both men will not acknowledge that Hezbollah was created out of the carnage that followed the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in the early 1980s, and that it was nurtured by the experience of combating Israel’s 18-year occupation of southern Lebanon.

By threatening to abrogate the multilateral treaty with Iran, it appears that Trump is doing the bidding of the Israel lobby which has had its intentions so far as achieving the destruction of Iran manifested in a number of position papers including many produced by the neoconservative-orientated and now defunct Project for the New American Century (PNAC).

Iran and Hezbollah were also targets proposed in a paper submitted in 1996 to Binyamin Netanyahu during his first tenure as Prime Minister of Israel. Led by the American neoconservative Richard Perle, A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm proposed “rolling back” the Syrian state, a crucial ally of Hezbollah, by proxy warfare.

Further, the “policy coup” referred to by retired US General Wesley Clark which Clark had learned of on two visits to the Pentagon in the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks, outlined a neoconservative strategy of taking out “seven countries in five years” including Syria, Lebanon (meaning Hezbollah) and Iran.

Apart from Sudan and Somalia, none of the targeted entities, including Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, shared the objectives of the Sunni extremist ideology that characterised the alleged instigators of the 9/11 attacks. Iraq and Syria were led by secular, nationalist governments with roots in the Baathist movement, Libya’s ruling Jamahiriya Party was also a secular government, while Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Iran represented bastions of the Shia Muslim world.

All had in common an implacable opposition to Israel.

Iran, Syria and Hezbollah in Lebanon together form the so-called ‘Shia Crescent’, an ‘arc of resistance’ which threatens Israel’s military domination of the Middle East. This alliance also elicits fear and concern from Saudi Arabia, the leader of the Sunni Muslim world, and a nation with which Israel has developed closer, albeit informal relations.

The grand design of neutralising Iran and its allies is one which has continued unabated over the course of three successive United States administrations spanning those of George W. Bush, Barack Obama and now Donald Trump. The foreign policy of Obama did not vary much from that of Bush except in regard to Obama favouring covert action rather than overt foreign invasions by the American armed forces. Thus, the Syrian insurrection of 2011 through which foreign Islamist mercenaries were allowed to infiltrate Syria’s borders with the aid of America’s allies in the region was a policy consistent with the overarching policy of weakening the Shia powers by attempting to isolate Hezbollah by destroying Syria, the conduit between Israel’s Lebanese enemy and Iran.

Hezbollah, which like Iran has participated in defending the Assad government,  is the only military force in the Arab world that is willing and capable of confronting Israel’s military machinery. It was responsible for Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000 after an almost two-decade-long occupation and they effectively defeated Israel in duels in the intelligence sphere and on the battlefield in the Lebanon War of 2006.

Israel has for long wanted to extend its frontier to the River Litani because it covets the resource the river provides. But the reclaiming of swathes of Syrian territory from Sunni Islamist groups such as Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra by the Syrian Arab Army with the help of Russian air power, Iranian advisors and soldiers provided by Hezbollah has frustrated the plan to cut Hezbollah off from Iran. It frustrates Israel’s desired ability to act with impunity in Lebanon as well as achieving its goal of securing its illegal annexation of the Golan Heights on the basis that none of the successor statelets of a balkanised Syria would have a claim to that region.

Whereas President Obama refused to yield to Israeli pressure to sacrifice American lives in a military adventure against Iran, it appears that President Trump is willing to pursue a path of aggression. In a speech defending the nuclear deal he had reached prior to a congressional vote in 2015, Obama claimed that “many of the same people who argued for the war in Iraq are now making the case against the Iran nuclear deal.” This was a not very veiled attack on the pro-Israel groups led by AIPAC, which sent hundreds of activists to lobby lawmakers to reject the deal.

Obama’s claim, which he repeated on several occasions, led to expressions of concern by several American Jewish organisations that his rhetoric could lead to a backlash against American Jews who are sensitive to suggestions of warmongering or placing ties to Israel over the interests of the United States.

Yet it remains the case, as Obama put it, that the “choice we face is ultimately between diplomacy and some form of war”. The joint statement issued earlier this month by the leaders of Britain, France and Germany affirming their support for the deal together with the words of the European Union’s foreign policy chief asserting that the agreement was working well clearly demonstrate that Trump is working towards achieving a preconceived agenda.

That agenda is a war agenda and it would be a catastrophe for the US to wage war against Iran on Israel’s behalf.

The malign results of the invasion of Iraq and the proxy war in Syria are apparent to all.

© Adeyinka Makinde (2017)

Adeyinka Makinde is a writer based in London, England.

The Arab-Israel War of 1973 and its Legacy

The Crossing. Egyptian forces moving across the Suez Canal en route to an assault on the “Bar Lev Line”.

Each of the full-blown wars between Israel and its Arab neighbours have carried a great measure of significance. The War of 1948 led to the creation of the modern state of Israel, a cause for euphoria among the world’s Jews in the post-Shoah-era, in contrast to the Nakba inflicted on the Arabs of Palestine. The War of 1967, during which Israel routed three Arab armies in six days established Israel as a regional hegemon while its defeated Arab neighbours stewed in their humiliation and the Palestinian communities in the West Bank and Gaza came under occupation. The Arab-Israeli War of 1973, known either as the “October War” or as the “Yom Kippur War”, is one which created the impetus for the Camp David Accords of 1978 which paved the way for the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty of 1979. But the war that commenced on October 6, 1973, by the surprise attack on Israel by Egypt and Syria, is also worth examining because it provides a framework towards understanding what has changed and what remains unchanged so far as the dynamics of conflict in the Middle East is concerned.

1. The Preconception. The Israeli rout of Arab armies in the “Six Day War” of 1967 led to laxity borne of overconfidence and arrogance pertaining to Arab military capabilities. The prevailing view was that Arab armies would not attack Israel until they could develop the capability to match Israeli air power. Although hubris was widespread, criticism quickly focused on one person. Moshe Dayan, who had held the portfolio of minister of defence since that war, was largely held to blame for not predicting the Arab attack and the level of unpreparedness the attack exposed. Although a cunning and ruthless general, he was decidedly not a very competent peacetime administrator.

2. The failure of intelligence. Israel’s inability to predict the Arab attack was not simply because the Egyptians had successfully employed Russian-derived deception techniques enshrined in the military doctrine of Maskirovka. It had a lot to do with the monopolization of all-source intelligence by Israeli Military Intelligence. Added to that were a number of false warnings, including one given by Ashraf Marwan, an Egyptian Mossad spy who was the son-in-law of the late Egyptian president, Gamal Nasser. The astronomical costs involved with the mobilisation of the Israeli army may have also contributed to a psychological fatigue and caution in responding to continued warnings in the lead up to the actual attack.

3. The war was not intended to destroy Israel and liberate Palestine. As was the case with the wars of 1948 and 1967, the often propagandized danger of annihilation by combined Arab forces was not present. The armies of both Egypt and Syria had limited objectives. The former wished to breach the “Bar Lev Line” and retake territory across the Suez Canal, while the latter hoped to to retake the Golan Heights lost to Israel during the “Six Day War”. There was no overarching plan to destroy Israel and proverbially “sweep the Jews into the sea”. The intended limited gains were simply to restore a degree of Arab pride and to use the war as leverage in negotiating the return of land occupied by Israel.

4. The oil crisis. Under the auspices of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), the Arab states enforced an embargo on oil sales to the United States and any country giving aid to Israel. A five percent reduction in oil production led to an increase in the cost of fuel and contributed to a period of economic stagnation in the West.  

5. The world may have come to the brink of nuclear catastrophe. The Soviet Union is claimed to have deployed Scud missile brigades armed with nuclear warheads, while Moshe Dayan is said to have ordered the preparation of at least one ballistic missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. In his book The Samson Option: Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author Seymour Hersh wrote that Israel’s missive to the administration of President Richard Nixon requesting an arms airlift, was accompanied by the threat of deploying nuclear weapons onto the field. Although the recollections of Arnan Azarhayu, an Israeli political insider, portray a more restrained reference to recourse to nuclear weapons in cabinet discussions during the war, it is nonetheless established fact that the United States placed its Strategic Air Command, Continental Air Defense Command, European Command and the Sixth Fleet on DEFCON 3 alert because of fears that the Soviet Union might intervene in the conflict on the side of its Arab allies.

6. The war ended as a victory for Israel, although the Arabs declared it a victory. The Egyptians, protected by surface-to-air missiles, crossed the Suez Canal and breached the “Bar Lev Line”. They held onto their gains after the failure of an initial Israeli counter-attack. The Syrians also made gains on the Golan Heights. However, Israeli successes after a counter-attack in the Golan theatre of war meant that President Hafez Assad sent a missive to President Anwar Sadat requesting that the Egyptians attack further into Sinai so as to relieve the pressure on his army. A refusal on Sadat’s part would have left the Syrian front liable to collapse with the effect that the Israelis would have been able to redeploy a substantial portion of its armed forces against the Egyptians.

Meanwhile as the Israeli High Command mulled over the difficult decision of whether to attack across the canal, Mossad received a message from an informant indicating that three Egyptian paratroop brigades were planning to land at specific locations behind enemy lines. But the garbled transcript provided no decipherable information which provided a logical rationale for the Egyptians to make this military decision. However intelligence previously received from Ashraf Marwan filled in the gaps. Earlier in 1973, Marwan had sent his Mossad handlers an Egyptian Army war plan setting out that sending Egyptian special forces behind Israeli lines was to serve as the prelude to the crossing of the canal by attacking formations of armoured divisions.

An Egyptian attack meant that part of its army would need to come out of the protected ‘umbrella’ within which the Israeli Air Force was vulnerable to Soviet-made surface-to-air missiles. It also meant that the Israelis could engage the Egyptians in a defensive action during which they would aim to significantly reduce Egyptian tank strength before launching an attack across the Suez. In the ensuing battles, the Egyptian Third Army became encircled and part of the east bank of Suez recaptured. The Israelis also proceeded with an attack across the canal. The Egyptian failure to hold on to much of their initial gains was offset by the slithers of territory they retained on the eastern bank of the Canal. However, the war ended with Israeli forces about 80 kilometers from Cairo and approximately 40 kilometers from Damascus.

There are a number of matters to ponder.

A. The threat of nuclear war emanating in the Middle East. The Arab-Israeli wars of 1967 and 1973 were both fought by nations allied with the two main contestants of the Cold War. And each conflict, particularly the 1973 war, had the subtext of the threat of Soviet intervention if Israeli gains at the expense of its Soviet-backed Arab foes exceeded an acceptable threshold.

But the ending of the Cold War has not removed the spectre of nuclear war from the Middle East. Israel, a nation which for a long time has acquired a nuclear capability, but has not made itself subject to the international treaties and protocols covering nuclear proliferation, has in recent times continually argued that Iran’s nuclear programme poses an existential threat. This is inspite of the fact that Iran is a signatory state to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, and has consented to the regime of inspections by the relevant regulatory authorities. Over and above that are the conditions placed on Iran’s programme by the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action reached between Iran and the ‘Five Plus One’ countries. Moreover, the intelligence community in the United States and even Mossad have declared that no evidence exists of Iran’s nuclear programme extending to the development of weapons. There are those who argue that part of the rationale for manufacturing these concerns over Iran’s nuclear programme are a strategic ploy aimed at diverting attention from the question of a settlement of the Palestinian issue.

Today, the threat of nuclear confrontation emanating from the Middle East comes not from Iranian intentions, but from the delicate and intermittently strained relations between the United States and the Russian Federation over the Syrian conflict. The Russians are contributing to a military coalition of Shia powers in aid of the government of Bashar al-Assad against an insurrection by Sunni Islamist groups who are supported by America’s regional allies.

B. The question of Arab solidarity. The limited objectives of the war of 1973 demonstrated, as did the war of 1948, that Israel’s neighbours have consistently been more preoccupied with their own national interests than that of the Palestinian people. The Arab protagonists during the war of 1948 were concerned with acquiring territory and not with the creation of a Palestinian state. Jordan reached a secret agreement with representatives of the Jewish Agency not to attack the soon to be declared state of Israel after the expiry of the British Mandate. Jordan acquired the West Bank and Egypt the Gaza Strip.

The Camp David agreement and the subsequent peace treaty between Israel and Egypt went counter to Palestinian interests. This is based on the logic that their ability to achieve statehood would be better assured within the context of a comprehensive agreement between Israel and all its neighbours rather than through separate agreements. Palestinian resistance to Israel has suffered because Arab opposition to Israel has been weakened by the policies followed by their leaders. After expulsion from Jordan in the early 1970s, the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) suffered the same fate in Lebanon. When Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982, it did so on the assurance from Arab states, other than Syria, that it would not be challenged in its quest to purge Lebanon of Palestinian guerillas. Today, the Arab League possesses neither the will nor the ability to break the blockade and sanctions against Gaza. It is also impotent or indifferent to the building of settlements on the West Bank.

It is also pertinent to note that Saudi Arabia has effectively renounced the idea of using an Arab embargo on oil sales as an option in the cause of Arab and Palestinian grievances. The terms attached to the embargo enforced in 1973 expressly referred to the restoration of the “legitimate rights of the Palestinian people”. While some have subsequently written about the myth of the oil weapon and highlighted the drawbacks to its use, the malign effects of the joint Arab action was clear enough to see. That Saudi Arabia, in recent years, has seen fit to use it against Russia and Iran while disavowing its use as a bargaining device in relation to the Palestinian cause, is indicative of the lack of Arab solidarity.

C. A different coalition threatens Israel’s regional military hegemony. With the peace treaty with Egypt continuing to endure, Syria weakened by internecine strife, Jordan effectively a protectorate state of Israel, as well as the developed symbiotic relationship between Israel and Saudi Arabia, Israel has less worry about the revival of the coalition of nations who fought her in the wars of 1948, 1967 and 1973.

This is why its focus is on the perceived threat of Iran, which is allied to Bashar al-Assad’s secular government in Syria, and Hezbollah in Lebanon. This arc of resistance to Israel domination is often referred to as the “Shia Crescent”. The destruction of the Syrian state would be welcomed by Israel on the grounds that none of the succeeding balkanised entities would be able to revive Syria’s claim to the Golan Heights.

Destroying Syria would also lead to the isolation of the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon which is the only military organisation in the Arab world capable of taking on the Israeli Defence Force. Indeed, it was Hezbollah, an organisation that grew out of Lebanese resistance to Israel’s brutal invasion and 18-year occupation, which forced Israel’s withdrawal in 2000 from southern Lebanon, an area Israel has long coveted because of the resource of the Litani River. In the war of 2006, Hezbollah outmanoeuvred Israel in the intelligence war, and held off Israeli ground incursions to the extent that Israel was eventually forced to withdraw its forces.  

D. Contemporary geopolitical circumstances. The Palestinian West Bank and the Syrian Golan Heights still remain under Israeli control. The West Bank continues to be colonised by the creation of Israeli settlements, which is gradually achieving the Zionist goal of a ‘Greater Israel’, a project undergirded by the belief that the territory encompasses that part of the ancient land of Israel known as Judea and Samaria. Continued expansion has meant that the Palestinian population continues to be squeezed into increasingly smaller enclaves. The Golan Heights, which was illegally annexed by Israel in 1981, was recently declared by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to be permanently and irrevocably under Israeli sovereignty.

Examining the 1973 war and comparing the circumstances of the present to the past provides an idea of what has changed and what has not. Hezbollah’s alliance with Iran, some would argue, has meant that the dynamic of the region has evolved from an Arab-Israeli conflict to an Iranian-Israeli conflict, albeit one so far fought on behalf of Iran by a ‘proxy’ army in the form of Hezbollah.

But what has not changed from all the wars dating back to the one of 1948, is the matter that forms the historical basis of Arab antagonism towards Israel: the plight of the Palestinian people. And with the prospects of statehood diminishing with every expansion of illegal Israeli settlements on the West Bank, the issue of Palestine remains a festering wound at the heart of the Middle East.

© Adeyinka Makinde (2017)

Adeyinka Makinde is a writer based in London, England.

The Enigmatic Humour of Catalonia

Barcelona Per Sarajevo

The language barrier and frenetic activity often involved with a week or fortnight’s vacation may impede on the ability to gauge a true picture of the sense of humour of a city or region.

The Catalan sense of humour is said to be similar to that of the English with a tendency towards self-deprecation and irony. It can be nuanced, but is often framed with copious elements of the off-colour.

If the tumultuous and harrowing experiences of a lost civil war, as well as the cultural and ideological repression during the Francoist dictatorship are matters which have shaped Catalonian humour, this may have informed the rationale of the joke “Barcelona Per Sarajevo”, an etching I encountered on a visit to Camp Nou, the home of FC Barcelona, in August 2004.

It is visually stark and direct as well as evidently an attempt at ‘black comedy’ positing, perhaps, a contrast between the homicidal effects of balkanization in Yugoslavia and the soulless uniformity provided by membership of the European Union.

But thirteen years later, I confess that I still cannot fathom precisely what the humour is.

Can you?

© Adeyinka Makinde (2017)

Adeyinka Makinde is a writer based in London, England.

Media Credits - Updated October 2017

Adeyinka Makinde – Media Credits

Geo-Politics & Boxing

Website: http://adeyinkamakinde.homestead.com

Blog: http://adeyinkamakinde.blogspot.co.uk

email: adeyinkamakinde@aol.com

Profile

Adeyinka Makinde trained for the law as a barrister. He lectures in criminal law and public law at a university in London, and has an academic research interest in intelligence & security matters. He is a contributor to a number of websites for which he has written essays and commentaries on international relations, politics and military history. Adeyinka is the author of two well-received books on boxers that set the boxing narrative in the context of the prevailing social, political and cultural circumstances of both of his subjects. He has served as a programme consultant and provided expert commentary for BBC World Service Radio, China Radio International and the Voice of Russia.

Service Objectives

To research and provide expert analysis and advice on features related to geo-politics as well as the history and culture of the sport of boxing.

Radio Interviews as a Pundit

Voice of Russia – 4th September 2014

Interviewed about my essay “A World War in the Offing: Why US-Nato Geo-political Policy May Lead to a Third World War”.

China Radio International – 2nd July 2011

Provided analysis for a feature on the impending world heavyweight title bout between Wladimir Klitschko of Ukraine and David Haye of England.

BBC World Service Radio – 11th September 2010

Provided analysis for the African sports programme ‘Fast Track’ in regard to an impending world heavyweight title bout between Wladimir Klitschko of Ukraine and Nigeria’s Samuel Peter.

Radio Interviews

KCAA NBC News Los Angeles – 10th August 2013

Discussed my book JERSEY BOY: The Life and Mob Slaying of Frankie DePaula on ‘It’s A Crime’, hosted by the lawyer and author Margaret McLean.

CJOB 68 Winnipeg – 9th April 2011

Discussed my book JERSEY BOY: The Life and Mob Slaying of Frankie DePaula on ‘Nighthawks’, a talk show presented by Bob Currier.

Sirius XM – 3rd September 2010

Discussed my book JERSEY BOY: The Life and Mob Slaying of Frankie DePaula on ‘Friday Night At The Fights’, a show hosted by Randy Gordon, a former Chairman of the New York State Athletic Commission, and Gerry Cooney, a former world heavyweight title contender.

WPDH FM, Poughkeepsie – 1st September 2010

Discussed my book JERSEY BOY: The Life and Mob Slaying of Frankie DePaula.

BBC Radio London – 12th August 2010

Discussed my books JERSEY BOY: The Life and Mob Slaying of Frankie DePaula and DICK TIGER: The Life and Times of a Boxing Immortal on ‘The Boxing Hour Show’ hosted by Steve Bunce.

WNST Baltimore – 25th September 2005

Discussed my book DICK TIGER: The Life and Times of a Boxing Immortal with Bob Haynie on his sports talk show.

Podcast Interviews

The Mind Renewed – 26th August 2017

The second part of a discussion of an article of mine entitled “The Pan-Islamic Option: The West’s part in the creation and sustaining of Islamist Terror”. It focused on the historical origins of Western use of Islam as a factor in war and insurgencies looking at Germany in Wilhelmine and Nazi-eras, Britain from the First World War onwards and the United States’ enduring relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood and its inadvertent contribution to the rise of global jihadism.

The Mind Renewed – 18th August 2017

The first part of a discussion of an article of mine entitled “The Pan-Islamic Option: The West’s part in the creation and sustaining of Islamist Terror”. It focused on recent policies followed by the West through which weaponised Islam is used as a tool in seeking geo-political advantage.

The Mind Renewed – 11th December 2016

Second part of a discussion of an academic paper of mine entitled “Can the British State Convict Itself?” which focussed on Britain’s role in the US-led ‘extraordinary rendition’ programme and Britain’s early counter-insurgency strategy in Northern Ireland.

The Mind Renewed – 4th December 2016

First part of a discussion of an academic paper of mine entitled “Can the British State Convict Itself?” which focussed on the international and domestic law implications of the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Outlaw Radio California – 17th August 2013

Discussed my book JERSEY BOY: The Life and Mob Slaying of Frankie DePaula with Burl Barer.

Michael Nayt Show – 27th October 2010

Discussed my book JERSEY BOY: The Life and Mob Slaying of Frankie DePaula.

Talking Boxing With Billy C – 9th September 2010

Discussed my book JERSEY BOY: The Life and Mob Slaying of Frankie DePaula with the host Bill Calogero.

On the Grind Boxing Radio – 25th July 2010

Discussed my book JERSEY BOY: The Life and Mob Slaying of Frankie DePaula.

Global Talk Radio – 15th August 2006

Discussed my book DICK TIGER: The Life and Times of a Boxing Immortal on the show, ‘A Story to Tell’.

Harambee Radio Network – 13th February 2006

Discussed my book DICK TIGER: The Life and Times of a Boxing Immortal on the show ‘Just About Books’.

Harambee Radio Network – 25th October 2005

Discussed my book DICK TIGER: The Life and Times of a Boxing Immortal on the show ‘Garvey’s Children’.

Videocast Interviews

Katehon – 14th October 2016

Provided analysis of Nato policy and its impact in the Middle East and North Africa.

Katehon – 30th September 2016

Provided analysis on the danger of nuclear war between Nato and the Russian Federation.

Cable TV Interviews

Bayonne Cablevision – 23rd May 2011

Discussed my book JERSEY BOY: The Life and Mob Slaying of Frankie DePaula on the Mike Ransome Show broadcast on Channel 19 of a Public Access network.

Hatton Boxing TV – 17th December 2010

Discussed my book JERSEY BOY: The Life and Mob Slaying of Frankie DePaula.

Bisi Olatilo Show – 21st September 2008

Discussed my book DICK TIGER: The Life and Times of a Boxing Immortal.

Revelation TV – 26th November 2005

Discussed my book DICK TIGER: The Life and Times of a Boxing Immortal on a sports show broadcast on Sky/Astra Channel 676.

Radio Documentary

BBC World Service – 1st August 2006

Consultant and contributor to a 25-minute feature on the life & career of the boxer Dick Tiger, of whom I wrote a biography. It focussed on Tiger’s role as a propagandist for the secessionist state of Biafra.

Film Documentary

Webber Films – Forthcoming 2018

Contributor to ‘American Rackets’, a documentary feature on the history of illegal gambling in the United States focussing on James Napoli, a high-ranking member of the Genovese Family and his youngest son Rocco.

IMG Media –  September 2006

Contributor to ‘The Rivals’, a one-hour special on boxing’s great rivalries which aired on Sky One.

Press Coverage

RIA Novosti – 5th September 2014

Headlined “Expert: Nato Enforcing US Financial, Commercial Power Globally”, it summarised the points I had made during an interview with the Voice of Russia.

The Hudson Reporter – 12th September 2010

Headlined “The Story of Frankie DePaula: Life and Death of Controversial Jersey City Boxer Revealed”, and written by Ricardo Kaulessar. It reviewed my book and reported on my book launch appearance at Jersey City Public Library’s Main Branch.

The Jersey Journal – 1st September 2010

Headlined “Book on Jersey City Prizefighter Pulls No Punches”, and written by Patrick Villanova. It provided a review of my book JERSEY BOY: The Life and Mob Slaying of Frankie DePaula”, excerpts from an interview with the writer and a preview of my book launch appearance at the Main Branch of Jersey City Public Library.

Journalism

Boxing

Written numerous features on boxing for websites such as Eastside Boxing dot com, The Cyber Boxing Zone dot com and Boxing dot com. Penned a preview article on the world heavyweight boxing title contest between Wladimir Klitschko and David Haye for China Radio International Sports.  Writings on boxing have also been published by Black Star News, a New York City-based investigative weekly newspaper, African Renaissance, a socio-political academic journal, and Africa Today, a news and current affairs magazine.

In the early to mid-2000s, served as a correspondent for Eastside Boxing from the ringside press area of many venues including the illustrious York Hall in Bethnal Green. Among the fighters I covered were David Haye, Carl Froch, Herbie Hide, Danny Williams, Audley Harrison and Howard Eastman.

Geo-Politics and other Writing

Write on a range of diverse topics including global security, international relations, history, military history, music and culture. Essays and commentaries have been published online by Global Research dot Canada, Dissident Voice, the Sri Lanka Guardian, Katehon dot com and War History Online. Also, published by the peer-reviewed journals Global Security and Intelligence Studies Journal and Covert Policing, Terrorism and Intelligence Law Review.

Contributed two essays to the forthcoming Cambridge Companion to Boxing. One will be on African boxing and the other on Jose Torres, a world champion who became a writer and social activist.

Authored Dick Tiger: The Life and Times of a Boxing Immortal (2005) and Jersey Boy: The Life and Mob Slaying of Frankie DePaula (2010).

My writings have been cited by scholars and writers of trade books, reference books, academic journals and an unpublished doctoral dissertation.

Media Production Skills

Wrote and produced two popular videos on youtube dot com about the subjects of the two biographies I have written.

“The Dick Tiger Story” – February 2009

A pictorial record of the life and career of the boxer Dick Tiger.

“The Frankie DePaula Story” – April 2009

The dramatic life and slaying of boxer Frankie DePaula told through newspaper photographs and news clippings.

© Adeyinka Makinde (2017)

Adeyinka Makinde is a writer based in London, England.