ABSTRACT
Christopher Okigbo, the man Chinua Achebe called “the finest Nigerian poet of his generation,” was born in Ojoto in the Onitsha province of what was then eastern Nigeria (Achebe and Okafor, viii). Okigbo was the fourth child of a Roman Catholic Ibo primary-school teacher, James Okigbo. Christopher Okigbo was a man of many talents and wide-ranging interests in literature, math, music, and Latin. A bright and successful student, he joined the University of Ibadan in 1951 for a degree in medicine. He changed his major to classics and graduated in 1956. He held a series of jobs including that of Latin teacher, librarian, and special representative of Cambridge University Press in Ibadan. He married Sefi in 1963 and had a daughter, Ibrahimat. The political upheaval in Nigeria of 1966 drew Okigbo into it, and he enlisted in the Biafran army and was made a major by special commission. He was killed in the war during a battle near Nsukka. Okigbo is remembered by friends as an intelligent, talented, passionate, and idealistic man. His untimely death deprived Nigeria of one of its most talented poets.
