Christopher Okigbo as a martyr
BY
CHUDI OFFODILE
I
am very glad to be here in this great institution, the university of Ibadan,
formerly the University College, Ibadan, a place that had a direct bearing on
the actions and inactions that shaped the events of the sixties and put Nigeria
on its present trajectory.
An institution that nurtured the
most creative and most talented of Nigeria’s post-colonial generation.
Today is about Christopher Okigbo, one of those incredible talents produced by
this university and unleashed unto an unsuspecting literary world. The sheer
quality and brilliance of some of those talents was sure to attract the
attention of the Alfred Nobel committee with an outstanding alumnus, Professor
Wole Soyinka earning its prize in literature.
Thankfully, I am not saddled with
the responsibility of discussing Okigbo’s poetry. I am assigned to deal with
the burdensome but less complicated subject of his martyrdom. Of course Okigbo
died fighting for the freedom of his people of Biafra. A martyr by definition
is a person who sacrifices something of great value and especially life itself
for the sake of principle, a martyr to the cause of freedom. Why did he not
just support the cause of Biafra like other intellectuals in other ways?
Perhaps as an administrator, a diplomat, teacher or propagandist? Why did he
opt for military duties, combat duties?
The history of the events of that
era that led to the declaration of Biafra should provide the guide. The coup
and counter-coup of 1966, the pogroms that followed, the exodus of Easterners
from the rest of Nigeria and the collapse of the Aburi agreement. The challenge
is to determine the true account of the events. Why are there different
versions of our history emanating from the same set of facts? This very issue
is at the heart of the failure of Nigeria’s match to nationhood. I will return
to this.
Today we have heard and learned a
lot about the life and works of Chistopher Okigbo but for the purpose of my
presentation, I will rely and make reference to what Professor Chinua Achebe,
another outstanding alumnus of this school, wrote about him in his book, There
Was a Country and Professor Wole Soyinka’s encounter with the ghost of
Christopher Okigbo in his book – The Man Died.
On the life and works of Christopher
Okigbo, Achebe wrote: “I have written and been quoted elsewhere as saying that
Christopher Okigbo was the finest Nigerian poet of his generation, but I
believe that as his work becomes better and more widely known in the world, he
will also be recognized as one of the most remarkable anywhere in our time. For
while other poets wrote good poems, Okigbo, conjured up for us an amazing,
haunting, poetic firmament of a wild and violent beauty. Forty years later I still
stand by that assessment”.
Achebe continues his assessment by
saying that, “his legendary creative work was first noticed at Government
College Umuahia, where the teachers encouraged this budding talent.
Later at
the University College, Ibadan, he published a number of poems in Horn, the
university magazine edited by J P Clark, yet another outstanding alumnus. He
also published his work in Wole Soyinka’s Black Orpheus and Transition, and
then produced a number of critically acclaimed poetry collections, including
the groundbreaking classics, Heavens Gate and Labyrinths”.
Achebe made the point that when
Okigbo decided to join the Biafran army, he went to great lengths to conceal
his plan, making up a story about a secret mission to Europe and by the time he
saw him two weeks later, he had become a major by special commission in the
Biafran army. On why Okigbo joined the army, Achebe explained that, “the
experience of the Igbo community from the pogroms [mass killing of Igbo people
especially in northern Nigeria] onward had different effects on different
people. There was a multitude of reactions – anger, loathing, sorrow,
depression, Etc. These sentiments in Christopher’s case somehow transformed
into a very strong pro-Biafra feeling. He had no doubt at all in his mind about
Biafra and the need for the country to be a free and separate nation. That
strong stance was something new for Christopher”.
Back in Nigeria, Soyinka was a
detainee. He was imprisoned because he not only denounced the war in Nigerian
newspapers, but he followed it up with a visit to the rebel territory in search
of peace. On his return to Nigeria he was arrested by the Gowon regime. And
from prison he wrote: “Of the many ghosts that haunt me here, the most frequent
and welcome are the ghosts of dead relations, grand father and the two ghosts
of Christopher Okigbo, Adekunle Fajuyi… Banjo and Alale also visit, but hardly
as ghosts”. “My grandfather sits gnome-like, chuckling secretively, every chunk
of his body pulsing with love and strength… Where have you been, Where are you
going, when are you coming again, why do you never stay? Now I will leave
Soyinka’s grandfather’s ghost alone lest he reappears. I should rather focus on
the ghost of Okigbo, which should be with us here today.
“Christopher rushing in his
whirlwind manner into the office of the Adjutant in Enugu. I am sunk in a deep
armchair behind the door where I had been placed by the Adjutant after my
earlier summary roughing-up by Biafran security, so Christopher does not
immediately see me when he enters the office. Hot and breathless, he delivers
the instructions he had brought from the front. The war is three weeks old. The
Adjutant takes rapid notes then says, look behind you. Christopher’s eyes pop
out of his head, then he breaks into that singular Cherookee yell-and-jig which
has raised squirms of unease among a host of self-conscious acquaintances in
every corner of the globe. He calms down minutes later, makes room for me in
the convertible by flinging his major’s uniform in the back. As he drives
towards the front, he says: you know, I learnt to use a gun right in the field.
I had never fired even an air rifle in my life. I swear it, you know I’m not a
violent man, I’m not like you. But this thing, I am going to stay with it till
the end”. Soyinka recalls another encounter with Christopher sitting hours
across the table from him while he awaited trial in a police cell in November
1965, discussing poetry.
Because of what Okigbo considered to
be grave injustice suffered by Easterners, with the declaration of Biafra in
May 1967 and the war that followed in July 1967, he joined the army and headed
to the battlefield. Two months into the war in September 1967, he was killed in
active combat in Nsukka sector. He was a hero and was honored posthumously with
Biafra’s medal of honor.
Contrast with the role of Ukpabi
Asika, another famous alumnus of this university who was opposed to Biafra.
Asika joined the federal side and accepted the role of Administrator of the
defunct East Central state. He lived and died a Nigerian. And I pose this
question: What if Asika had died in active service during the war, would he
have qualified for martyrdom in the eyes of Nigerians? Is Asika a Nigerian
hero? By the way, who are Nigeria’s heroes?
Nigeria’s complicated history
frustrates the march to nationhood as different sections of the country see
things differently and oftentimes interpret the same set of facts very
differently. There cannot be two sides of truth. An account of events is either
true or false. Our different accounts of historical facts cannot all be true
and that makes the teaching of history rather problematic. The solution is not
to remove history as a subject in our school curriculum or to engage in the
dangerous dance of pythons with needless fatalities, but to commit to the
universal ideals of justice and fairness. So that even with all our
differences, applying the universal standards of justice, we can begin to pull
closer, begin to see some things the same way and begin to forge a common
worldview with the same heroes. Not different heroes for different ethnicities.
On the war and its aftermath,
Soyinka predicted our present national quagmire and possibility of
re-occurrence of the events that led to the war in the following words; “What
is clear, miserably, humiliatingly clear is that a war is being fought without
a simultaneous program of reform and redefinition of social purpose. A war of
solidity; for solidity is a far more accurate word than unity to employ in
describing a war which can only consolidate the very values that gave rise to
the war in the first place, for nowhere and at no time have those values been
examined. Nowhere has there appeared a program designed to ensure the
eradication of the fundamental iniquities which gave rise to the initial
conflicts”. I would argue therefore, that the children of that war being
branded as terrorists are indeed victims of war and should be treated as such.
Because he fought on the side of
Biafra, expectedly, opinions differ on his place in history. But he was a hero.
A hero need not be perfect but a martyr is a perfect hero, for there is no
better way to die than for a cause you believe in. Christopher Okigbo died a
martyr.
Offodile is the former chairman,
public petitions committee, house of representatives and author of The
Politics of Biafra and the Future of Nigeria
https://www.thecable.ng/christopher-okigbo-martyr
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