Grace Makinde: A Life in Pictures

Eulogy for Grace Makinde (May 23, 1937-September 27, 2021).

Our Mother was born on Sunday, May 23rd, 1937, on the island of Carriacou, a part of the Grenadine Islands in the Caribbean. She was named Grace because of the difficult circumstances of her birth which she barely survived.

Her Father, Floris Simmons, was a civil servant in the Department of Agriculture, and her Mother Nina McIntosh was a teacher. She was one of four children: Roy, the oldest, Yvonne the second, and Bruce, the youngest. Although they were separated by one year, our grandmother brought up our mother and her sister like twins; dressing them up in identical clothes and ribbons.

The children were brought up in the Seventh-Day Adventist Church of which our grandmother was a devout member.

Mother was a bright and thoughtful child who was very popular among her peers and the schoolteachers. When she was 9 years old, her family moved to the island of St. Vincent. St. Vincent was an administrative hub and the more expansive environment served as a stimulus for the natural curiosity and thirst for knowledge which she had exhibited. Her teachers were aware of her abilities and in her last term at school, they appointed her as a teacher to the children in the kindergarten.

In 1957, our Mother emigrated to England to begin her nursing career. Based in London, she became an accomplished social networker, attending numerous weddings and christenings to which she was invited.

In 1961, she married Emmanuel Makinde, a Nigerian student of accountancy, with whom she had five children: Remi, Tokunbo, Tola, Yinka and Peter. She relocated to Nigeria where her husband, initially a civil servant in the Audit Department of the Federal Ministry of Works, would be commissioned as an officer in the Nigerian Navy.

In Lagos, she settled down to the role of housewife. She was not unaffected by the turbulent national events which included two military coups, and because our Father’s role as the Flag Lieutenant to the Chief of Naval Staff involved travel to many foreign countries, our Father agreed to our Mother temporarily moving to England where she lived with her children for an 18-month period between 1967 and 1968. She returned while the civil war was still ongoing.

Mother returned to England with us at the end of 1970 when our Father was posted to the Nigerian High Commission in London where he would serve as the Deputy Defence Adviser. As the wife of a military attaché, she performed a range of roles including planning social functions held at the High Commission, as well as at the residences at which we lived firstly at Bexhill Road in Southgate and then at Hillview Gardens in Hendon. She also liaised with staff at Buckingham Palace in relation to several events and was privileged to have attended the Trooping the Colour, the parade marking the official birthday of the British Sovereign, viewing the ceremony from an area reserved for the diplomatic corps. She played hostess to a range of guests at our home including diplomats, Nigerian military officials and members of the Nigerian community in London and other parts of Britain. During this period, she also found the time to train as a coiffeuse.

She returned to Nigeria at the end of 1973 but returned to England in 1977 after the ending of her marriage. She became a social worker and worked as a residential warden until her retirement. 

Our Mother's Christian faith informed her compassionate attitude towards human suffering. Among the charities that she supported were the British Red Cross and Compassion UK, a non-denominational charity partnered with churches around the world which has the objective of helping and empowering children born into extreme poverty. These were a continuum of a life-long characteristic which included her support for charities which aided the orphaned and starving children who were victims of the Nigerian Civil War. 

She was a life-long believer in the benefits of healthy living and was an early adherent of what has come to be known as the health and wellness food market. She strove to educate and encourage all about this.

She enjoyed reading and listening to a wide range of music, both hobbies which she transmitted to each of us.

We remember our Mother for her strength of character, her altruism, the joy she got from her hobbies and above all for the unmitigated love and support which she bestowed on her children and her extended family.

We will forever love her and miss her.

She is survived by her children: Remi, Tokunbo, Tola, Yinka and Peter; her grandchildren Shannon, Ashley, Folasade, Abiola and Tosin; her sisters Edwina Leader and Yvonne Allen; her brothers Bruce McIntosh, Randolph McIntosh, and Robin McIntosh; her cousins Tessel and Jackie Campbell; and many nieces and nephews, the names of which are too many to mention.

Eulogy For My Mother

Our Mother was born on Sunday, May 23rd, 1937, on the island of Carriacou, a part of the Grenadine Islands in the Caribbean. She was named Grace because of the difficult circumstances of her birth which she barely survived.

Her Father, Floris Simmons, was a civil servant in the Department of Agriculture, and her Mother Nina McIntosh was a teacher. She was one of four children born to Nina: Roy, the oldest, Yvonne the second, and Bruce, the youngest. Although they were separated by one year, our grandmother brought up our mother and her sister like twins; dressing them up in identical clothes and ribbons.

The children were brought up in the Seventh-Day Adventist Church of which our grandmother was a devout member.

Mother was a bright and thoughtful child who was very popular among her peers and the schoolteachers. When she was 9 years old, her family moved to the island of St. Vincent. St. Vincent was an administrative hub and the more expansive environment served as a stimulus for the natural curiosity and thirst for knowledge which she had exhibited. Her teachers were aware of her abilities and in her last term at school, they appointed her as a teacher to the children in the kindergarten.

In 1957, our Mother emigrated to England to begin her nursing career. Based in London, she became an accomplished social networker, attending numerous weddings and christenings to which she was invited.

In 1961, she married Emmanuel Makinde, a Nigerian student of accountancy, with whom she had five children: Remi, Tokunbo, Tola, Yinka and Peter. She relocated to Nigeria where her husband, initially a civil servant in the Audit Department of the Federal Ministry of Works, would be commissioned as an officer in the Nigerian Navy.

In Lagos, she settled down to the role of housewife. She was not unaffected by the turbulent national events which included two military coups, and because our Father’s role as the Flag Lieutenant to the Chief of Naval Staff involved travel to many foreign countries, our Father agreed to our Mother temporarily moving to England where she lived with her children for an 18-month period between 1967 and 1968. She returned while the civil war was still ongoing.

Mother returned to England with us at the end of 1970 when our Father was posted to the Nigerian High Commission in London where he would serve as the Deputy Defence Adviser. As the wife of a military attaché, she performed a range of roles including planning social functions held at the High Commission, as well as at the residences at which we lived firstly at Bexhill Road in Southgate and then at Hillview Gardens in Hendon. She also liaised with staff at Buckingham Palace in relation to several events and was privileged to have attended the Trooping the Colour, the parade marking the official birthday of the British Sovereign, viewing the ceremony from an area reserved for the diplomatic corps. She played hostess to a range of guests at our home including diplomats, Nigerian military officials and members of the Nigerian community in London and other parts of Britain. During this period, she also found the time to train as a coiffeuse.

She returned to Nigeria at the end of 1973 but returned to England in 1977 after the ending of her marriage. She became a social worker and worked as a residential warden until her retirement.

Our Mother’s Christian faith informed her compassionate attitude towards human suffering. Among the charities that she supported were the British Red Cross and Compassion UK, a non-denominational charity partnered with churches around the world which has the objective of helping and empowering children born into extreme poverty. These were a continuum of a life-long characteristic which included her support for charities which aided the orphaned and starving children who were victims of the Nigerian Civil War.

She was a life-long believer in the benefits of healthy living and was an early adherent of what has come to be known as the health and wellness food market. She strove to educate and encourage all about this.

She enjoyed reading and listening to a wide range of music, both hobbies which she transmitted to each of us.

We remember our Mother for her strength of character, her altruism, the joy she got from her hobbies and above all for the unmitigated love and support which she bestowed on her children and her extended family.

We will forever love her and miss her.

She is survived by her children: Remi, Tokunbo, Tola, Yinka and Peter; her grandchildren Shannon, Ashley, Folasade, Abiola and Tosin; her sisters Edwina Leader and Yvonne Allen; her brothers Bruce McIntosh, Randolph McIntosh, and Robin McIntosh; her cousins Tessel and Jackie Campbell; and many nieces and nephews, the names of which are too many to mention. 

Grace Makinde was born on May 23rd, 1937 and died on September 27th, 2021.

© Adeyinka Makinde (2021).

Adeyinka Makinde is a writer and a law lecturer who is based in London, England.

Personal Tribute to My Mother

My Mother Grace Makinde nee McIntosh was a force of nature.

She was loving and compassionate; intelligent and resourceful; persistent and determined. She was a strong woman who battled through life’s vicissitudes with unceasing courage.

She was a survivor.

Where do I start in a short summation of my mother?

I just mentioned that she was a survivor, and the circumstance of her birth is the inexorably logical starting point.

My Grandmother told me that my mother almost died at birth. She lost a lot of blood, and her survival was in the balance. But somehow and against the odds my mother pulled through. My Grandmother was a deeply religious woman, and in her gratitude for the survival of her third child, she gave thanks to God by naming her Grace.

My Mother had immense reservoirs of strength. She told me that she virtually gave birth to me single-handedly in a military hospital in Nigeria which was understaffed at the time owing to the political crisis that would lead to a civil war. One month earlier, while she was heavily pregnant with me, she woke up on the morning of a violent military uprising to find the servants’ quarters behind her home deserted. She needed to do the household shopping, but none of the home-helps or a driver were available. My Father, a military officer, was on a naval course in England.

So, Mum decided to go out on a shopping expedition on that fateful day. Before leaving, she made sure that my three siblings were securely ensconced in a bedroom with food and drink, and that they had toys and reading material to occupy themselves. They were under firm instructions not to leave the house which had its doors locked and windows shut.

She then embarked to the market. There was, she told me, a heavy presence of soldiers at all points of her journey. They patrolled the streets which had numerous roadblocks. Soldiers were on either side of the canal which she had to cross on her way to and from the market. The soldiers told her they were under orders to search the contents of all bags including those which she was taking back home after her shopping was complete. It was exhausting, but thankfully she got home safely to her children.

My Mother was compassionate. She believed in the sense of charity as exemplified by Jesus Christ in whom she believed. She sympathised for the slaughtered innocents during Nigeria’s early era of turbulence and donated to the relief of the starving in the ensuing civil war. She supported several charities to which she made regular donations to the end of her life.

My Mother believed in justice for all. She was always for those who she perceived to be the underdog. She decried racism and advocated for herself and others when she sensed a whiff of injustice.

Still, I preferred it when she was not putting all the burdens of the world on her shoulders. She had a capacity for joyousness, and it was a thing to behold when she took to singing her favourite hymns and her favourite country songs. She loved to read and to exercise.

She strove to live a healthy life in what she ate and what she drank. She encouraged others to do the same. Although advanced in age, she appeared to be in fairly robust health, and I felt that she would survive the sudden and unexpected seizure which overcame her. But her strong-minded will to live could only be defeated by the will of God. I will remember her for her unreserved love, her strength, and her indefatigable spirit.

As I meditate and mourn her passing, what I wish for now more than anything is that my mother is in a state of everlasting tranquillity and of eternal peace.

Grace Makinde was born on May 23rd, 1937 and died on September 27th, 2021.

© Adeyinka Makinde (2021).

Adeyinka Makinde is a writer and a law lecturer who is based in London, England.

My Father's Photograph of Commodore Joseph Wey Meeting President Jomo Kenyatta in 1967

Commodore Joseph Wey (left), the Nigerian Chief of Naval Staff, shakes hands with President Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya on Saturday, March 11, 1967. Original Photo Credit: Lt. Emmanuel Makinde. © Adeyinka Makinde/Makinde Family Archives.

Commodore Wey was in Nairobi to deliver a special diplomatic message to President Kenyatta on behalf of Lt. Colonel Yakubu Gowon, the Head of the Federal Military Government of Nigeria.

Wey, a member of the Supreme Military Council, was accompanied by Edwin Ogbu, the Permanent Secretary to the Federal Ministry of External Affairs.

Also accompanying Wey was my Father, Lieutenant Emmanuel Oladipo Makinde, his aide-de-camp, who was officially designated the Flag Lieutenant to the Chief of Naval Staff.

Although the content of the letter was not revealed, the Federal Military Government was at the time involved with garnering support for the Federal side during the political crisis that would lead to the outbreak of a civil war between the central government and the Eastern region which became the secessionist state of Biafra.

Commodore Wey functioned for a short period of time as an Acting Foreign Minister and the Personal Representative of the Nigerian Head of State. My Father accompanied Wey, who was promoted to the rank of rear admiral in 1967 on visits to locations such as Kenya, Canada and the Vatican.

Prior to this, my Father had accompanied Wey to the Aburi Peace Conference in Ghana and the burial of the slain military Head of State, Major General J.T.U. Aguiyi-Ironsi in Umuahia-Ibeku in January 1967.

My Father went on to become the Deputy Defence Advisor to the Nigerian High Commission in London, performing this role of a military attache in the early 1970s. Later, he became the Director of Navy Supplies and Logistics.

He retired, voluntarily, at the rank of captain.

© Adeyinka Makinde (2021).

Adeyinka Makinde is a writer based in London, England.

My Mother The Military Wife

My Mother pictured with my Father at a function at the Nigerian High Commission in London during the early 1970s when my Father, then a Lt. Commander, was serving as the Deputy Defence Adviser.

I have previously supplied several anecdotes about my Father’s military career in relation to his interactions with the likes of Vice Admiral J.E.A. Wey, General Yakubu Gowon, Chief Odumegwu Ojukwu and General Ibrahim Babangida. But what of my Mother, the military spouse who was not Nigerian but lived through many of Nigeria’s early political events and observed at close quarters several of the military officers who came to rule the country?

Well, for me the starting point would be her recollections of the fateful day of July 29 1966, approximately one month before my birth. She woke up early that morning at the bungalow in which she lived on Child Avenue in the Apapa district of Lagos to find the servants quarters deserted. Many, if not all, of the occupants who served the “Married Quarters” section of a residential neighbourhood dominated by military officials, had fled.

News had spread of the violent uprising being orchestrated by officers and men of the army and the air force who were mainly from the Northern Region. They were targeting their counterparts from the Eastern Region as a reprisal for what they perceived to have been an ethnically motivated operation in January 1966 which had claimed the lives of prominent Northern personages in the sphere of politics and the military, an action in relation to which the perpetrators had not been punished.

The bungalow on Child Avenue was close to the 1st Signal Squadron, a location at which one of the coup leaders, Lt. Colonel Murtala Muhammed, the Inspector of Army Signals, had previously served as Officer-Commanding.

My Mother, heavily pregnant with me, was in a conundrum. She needed to do her shopping for the week, but there was no available home help or driver to carry out this task. My Father, at the time a sub-lieutenant, was in England on a naval course. Six months earlier as the Flag Lieutenant to Commodore J.E.A. Wey, the Chief of the Naval Staff, he had stood behind Wey and Major General J.T.U. Aguiyi-Ironsi at the heavily guarded Parliament Building when Ironsi gave his first press conference following his assumption of power.

She decided to go to the market herself on that Friday morning. First, she made sure that my three siblings who were on school holiday, were securely ensconced in a bedroom in the house with food and drink, as well as toys and reading materials to occupy them. They were under firm instructions not to leave the house which had its doors locked and windows shut.

She then embarked on her shopping expedition to Ajegunle Market. There was, she told me, a heavy presence of soldiers at all points of her journey. They patrolled the streets and were placed at each vantage point including the intersections where there were roadblocks. Soldiers were also present on either side of the canal which she had to cross to and from the market.

They were jittery and taking no chances. The soldiers told her they were under orders to search the contents of all bags including those which she was taking back home after her shopping was complete. It was a strain, but she thankfully got home safely to her children.

The ramifications of the military uprising which overthrew Major General Ironsi would present another potential obstacle for my Mother. This was to do with the circumstances of my birth. When she went into labour, she was taken to Myohaung Barracks in the Yaba district of Lagos, at which a military hospital was located. Many of the medical staff at the hospital, doctors, nurses, and technicians, were indigenes of the Eastern Region to which they had now fled as the political crisis in Nigeria intensified. The hospital was thus under-staffed, but my birth was, thankfully, an uncomplicated one.

My Mother was familiar with one of our officer neighbours on Child Avenue. Theophilus Danjuma was a slenderly-built, quiet and amiable young army captain who lived in a billet at the “Bachelors' Quarters” behind our home on Child Avenue. Danjuma, now a major, had been a key participant in the July coup. He had journeyed to the city of Ibadan where he had been tasked with the job of arresting Major General Ironsi at Government House in Ibadan. He had laid siege at Government House before finally entering the building and arresting both Ironsi and Lt. Colonel Adekunle Fajuyi, the military governor of the Western Region who had been hosting Ironsi. Danjuma claimed to have “lost control” to subordinates who were waiting outside. Both Ironsi and Fajuyi were then kidnapped and later murdered on the outskirts of the city.

My Mother told me that she did not remember Danjuma coming back to his home but recalled that a van arrived to collect his things. A side note to Danjuma was provided by my older brother who recalled that after Danjuma was sent to the war front after the outbreak of the Nigerian Civil War, he and a gang of friends who were still infants broke into Danjuma’s home where they found a sub-machine gun mounted on a table. They took the magazines of bullets lying around and later had fun tossing bullets into a bonfire.

Danjuma later rose to the position of Chief of Army Staff.

One of the privileges that my Mother enjoyed as the wife of a serving military officer was booking a chalet reserved for naval officers at Tarkwa Bay, a resort bordering Lagos harbour. She often did this during half-term holidays and the long holidays too. Our journey to the delights of the beach began on a boat at the Naval Base in Apapa. Tarkwa Bay was a relatively exclusive destination during the 1960s and provided a more sedate environment than that offered by the busier Bar Beach on Victoria Island.

She also played hostess to a litany of military guests at our homes in Lagos and London when my Father was posted to Britain to serve as the Deputy Defence Adviser to the Nigerian High Commission. Among those who visited our home in Hendon during the 1970s were Vice Admiral Wey, (then) Commander Albert Ajanaku and Air Force Major Uga, one of three military attaches posted to the High Commission. In London, she attended functions at the Nigerian High Commission and saw the Trooping the Colour, the parade marking the official birthday of the British Sovereign, from an area reserved for the diplomatic corps.

My Mother, who was born in Carriacou, a part of the Grenadine Islands in what in old parlance was referred to as the West Indies, was a foreigner in Nigeria. But she adapted well. Nonetheless, she was mortified by the events that followed the coups which had taken place during the year of my birth. She was particularly sympathetic to the suffering of ethnic Igbos who absorbed a succession of pogroms in 1966 and starvation during the war that followed.

On one occasion in Lagos, she took it upon herself to reprimand a group of conversing people who were making fun of Igbos who at the height of the killings in the Northern Region, had been caught by mobs while unsuccessfully trying to preserve their lives by passing themselves off as non-Igbos, either through a change in attire or speaking in a language from the Northern or Western regions.

While temporarily living in London for 18 months with her children during the civil war, she made repeated donations to humanitarian groups seeking relief for the starving in the short-lived Biafran Republic and encouraged her friends and members of her family to do so.

It was a humanitarian rather than a political statement, albeit a sensitive one given that my Father was a serving federal officer. He had consented to my Mother taking us to live in London for a period between 1967 and 1968 because he was travelling to many destinations with (then) Rear Admiral Wey who was serving as the Acting Foreign Minister, as well as the personal representative of Major General Yakubu Gowon, the military Head of State who had emerged after the overthrow of Ironsi. My Father did not want her to be in the position she had been at the time of the coup of July 1966 when he was abroad.

It is these early years which coincided with Nigeria’s turbulent history and the emergence of military rule which stand out during the period that my Mother was a “Military Wife”.

My Mother Grace Makinde died in September 2021.

© Adeyinka Makinde (2021)

Adeyinka Makinde is a writer based in London, England.

Annual Boxing Memorabilia Fayre (2021)

I was back at London’s Boxing Fayre after a gap of a few years at the event held at the Dick Collins Hall in Camden, North London on Saturday, October 9th 2021. And as ever, it provided a superb meeting ground for aficionados of the fight game. On display at my stall were copies my biography of Frankie DePaula, Jersey Boy: The Life and Mob Slaying of Frankie DePaula and the Cambridge Companion to Boxing for which I contributed two essays: “The Africans: Boxing and Africa” and “Jose Torres: The Boxer as Writer”.

With Chas Taylor, the man who along with wife Kym makes it all possible

John Henry Lewis, the American world light heavyweight champion prior to defending his title against Len Harvey, a Briton, in November 1936

Nigerian featherweight Rafiu Joe King while preparing for his non-title bout against Howard Winstone of Britain in March 1964

Nino Benvenuti absorbing an uppercut from Emile Griffith during their World Middleweight title contest at Shea Stadium, New York on September 29, 1967

© Adeyinka Makinde (2021).

Adeyinka Makinde is an author and writer based in London, England.