The 2017 Lagos Book and Art Festival (LABAF) will be remembered for being a sequel to the conference and tributes to commemorate the passage of the renowned poet, Christopher Ifekandu Okigbo. It was organised by the Christopher Okigbo Foundation (COF) and the University of Ibadan (UI) to mark the 50th anniversary of his death. Okigbo’s daughter, Obiageli, his friends, classmates and protégé celebrate him in this report by Evelyn Osagie.
Nobel laureate Prof Wole Soyinka, Okigbo’s friend
Chris was a teacher, who was disciplined. He was a multivalent person – he was a poet, musician and an activist, and at the same time, an introvert. Chris was one of the genuine renaissance people of our generation. He used to accompany me on the piano in those days, right here. Francesca and myself would sing and Chris was on the piano. And he used to compose musical pieces, short pieces on the piano. The soul of Chris was music. I remember a lot of times we would be downstairs at Cambridge House; maybe his steward has prepared lunch or snack; I would go upstairs and say, ‘Chris, we are all ready now’. And I just found Chris in one of those very contemplative moods; out of that mood, marked down one line of poetry, which he would then later on read to me or to us, and say, ‘I had been busy working on that particular line at that time’.
“He was a chicken thief. I ate out of it. When he was teaching in Fiditi (Fiditi Grammar School), and I used to drive out of campus to go and stay with him, Chris never had food in his house. He had a little backyard. Chris would spread grains of corn on a side of the fence. He made a little hole in the fence. Those chickens would come through the hole and Chris would catch the chicken. I confess. I participated in the eating of the stolen chicken, but I swear I never killed one chicken.”
Prof John Pepper Clark, another friend
“He was a genuine person. He wasn’t a chameleon that protects itself. He was effective and useful as a poet. I recall the first time Christopher and I really met. It was on the road at University College. He came to me where I had been confined after failing my final exams and asked why I didn’t appear in Ulli Beier’s Black Orpheus. And in the course of trying to sell me, Chris turned himself into a poet. Chris stood out as a poet, a poet might not be there, but his works are there. His writings would always be remembered. Ever since the death of Chris, nothing had changed. Fifty years after the war, restructuring is what everybody aspires for, but for the few that benefit from how things are now right now.
Eze Chukwuemeka Ike, Okigbo’s classmate
“Umuahia taught us to play the game of cricket with a straight bat..The African Writers Association soon emerged, involving both of us and others, including Obi Wali, Mike Echeruo, et cetera. UNN saw the emergence of Chris as a talented poet with a unique, unconventional style. He would knock on my outer door at the crack of dawn, hand my wife an empty beer bottle and spoon, and instruct her to keep the rhythm, and thereafter invited both of us to listen to what came last night, namely his latest poem.
Joop Berkhout, later bought Okigbo’s house
“It is great that his daughter, Obi, is giving this kind of honour to her father. She was very small when her father died, but she kept her father alive. And even though she doesn’t live in Nigeria, but in Belgium, she was still able to keep the memory of her father alive and united his old friends, well-wishers and Okigbo’s family.
“It is also very nice that she chose my house where her father once lived to unveil the UNESCO’s plaque in his honour that showed Okigbo’s Collection being inscribed on the Register of Memory of the World in 2007. I bought this house years after he left as a publisher.
It feels very nice, unique and very unusual living in a house with such a historical past. The house means far more than the structure. Nobody can build a house like this anymore all over the country. This is a house that can stand up any storm or earthquake. It’s made of a solid concrete both inside and outside. This shows the creativity and class of the man, Okigbo. The man is a genius.
Kole Omotoso, his protégé
“IBADAN 1965…Mbari Club was a natural draw for an aspiring writer. Situated a mere street walk from Mokola Roundabout, past the ancient Palm Chemist and you were there in the midst of Chinua Achebe, Ulli Beier, Amos Tutuola, Wole Soyinka, Duro Ladipo and Christopher Okigbo. Lindsay Barrett had arrived from Kingston, Jamaica, via London perhaps. Poetry published in their journal BLACK ORPHEUS was available at the counter bookstall. There was a bar somewhere at the back and a small performance and rehearsal stage, again somewhere in the two-storey building.
“It was my second year as an undergraduate at the University of Ibadan. Student Union activities had been part of the life since my closest friend Ladipo was running for PRO of the student union government. Nigerian electoral politics was boiling over…One night we went to the police station. A young writer friend of Christopher Okigbo was being detained in police custody at Iyagunku. His name? Wole Soyinka. We went to spend some time with him.
“There was the usual banter that he was not the one, who held up the radio station and prevented the election victory speech of the premier from being broadcast. And, as alleged, at gun point, forced the radio continuity staff to substitute his own tape warning the premier and his goons to get out of the region before the people drenched the streets with their blood. Yes, we would bear witness that he was not Wole Soyinka, in fact.
“We know what happened. It was in this circumstance that Christopher Okigbo and China Achebe and thousands of others, our friends and our families left for Enugu and other places in the Eastern Region. Soon, oro lo mu maa wi maa ro wa. Eni a bu baba re a a gbesan. Every action has consequences and those, who had been injured opted out of Nigeria through the instrumentality of Biafra. Christopher Okigbo joined the Biafran Army as a Major and went to the war front.
“Our last telephone conversation was tense. He asked about Femi Osofisan and I asked when he was coming back. He never came back.
“Ali Mazrui wrote The Trial of Christopher Okigbo. I could not bring myself to read the book. It seemed that Ali Mazrui accused Okigbo, the poet, of abandoning the poetic mission to take up the mission of the soldier. It was a bad case.
“What is the ultimate mission of the poet except to speak on behalf of traduced humanity, banalised humanity, abused humanity. And sometimes speaking means putting down the drum and the pen and picking up the cudgel to enforce respect to humanity from the traducers and abusers of humanity. That is the mission of the poet everywhere, in every age. That was the mission that Christopher Okigbo died for, and how can a man and a woman die better than for what we hold dear and treasure?
Okigbo’s daughter, Obi
“He is somebody very thorough. When you read his manuscript, you’d see everything was well-thought about. And you can see in the different influences – there is musical influences, cultural influences. He was a true Igbo, classics man. He was very much loving the poetry of his contemporaries and he also used ancient epic structures, very contemporary and very traditional. And that’s what has earned the UNESCO Register of Memory of the World in 2007.
Kunle Ajibade
“Okigbo was a great spirit. He was charismatic and lovable. Soyinka, Achebe and Clark – all were ready to defend him.”
