By MCPHILIPS NWACHUKWU
Christopher Okigbo( 1930-67): Thirsting for Sunlight by Obi Nwakanma, HEBN Publishers Plc, Ibadan, 2010, PP,276.

Obi Nwakanma’s biography of late Christopher Okigbo titled ,Chistopher Okigbo( 1930-67): Thirsting for Sunlight  is in every sense a very ambitious work. It is ambitious in many senses: First because, the late Okigbo, who sadly died a year after the birth of the biographer, while fighting on the Biafran side during the ugly fratricidal civil war that lasted between 1966 to 1970 remains even in death the most influential, most studied and one of the greatest African poets of the African modernist sensibility.

Second,Okigbo by the nature of his immense presence in the development of contemporary  African poetry  has in a very unique and understandable  is regarded even in death as a very difficult poet, whose poetry is steeped in complexity,  such  that its meaning  becomes illusive; and where decipherable, yields to several levels of meaning.

Third, with the exception of few African writers like Senegalese poet, Leopold Sedah Sengho and  Chinua Achebe, whose  literary biographies have been written, all the other ones have largely been ignored since to quote Nwakanma, “ most of the writers, who have emerged in the middle  of the  twentieth century still dominate the discourse of modern African literature and retain a contemporaneity.”

Through  Thirsting for Sunlight…, Obi Nwakanma  opens a window into the energetic and interesting poetic canvass of Okigbo, whose very  own very complex  personality and restless spirit, all go together to build the defining poetic thread that stitches together his  hybrid experiences.

Nwakanma’s effort at this biographical landscaping  of one of the finest poets of last century goes beyond chronicling Okigbo’s story, but  also captures in a very interesting historical manner, the  extended story of Nigeria at the threshold of history: it captures in the same strength; the story of a whole generation of writers, as well as a story of the socio- political factors: religion, culture, education, pop culture and other forms of pressures that shaped the short  life that Okigbo witnessed.

First  published by United Kingdom based James Currey, the Nigerian edition issued by Ibadan publishing firm, HEBN Publishers Plc, Thirsting for Sunlight… is a comprehensive document that chronicles Okigbo and the poetry of Labyrinth in a way that has never been done by any scholar before.

Obi Nwakanma

Though, the critical works of Sunday Anozie, Creative Rhetoric  and such other seminal commentaries by renowned scholars like late D.I.Nwoga, Romanus  Egudu, late Ezenwa Ohaeto among other scholars have attempted to  provide insights into the understanding of Okigbo’s meta- poetry, but none has achieved the feat of the present work, which succeeds  in painting the definitive life of the poet, whose own poetry from the whole of these account amounts to a literary autobiography.

Divided into eight chapters comprising : A river goddess, his mother’s death &a headmaster father, Ojoto( 1930-45), Sportsman, actor & effortless genius, Cricket, Umuahia( 1945-50), classics, politics7 Urbane dissipation, 1950-56,Colonial  civil servant, covert businessman & bankrupt, Lagos, (1956-58) Poetry gives purpose to his voice, Fiditi( 1958-60), A librarian ravenous for literature & women, Nsukka( 1960-62), Gentlemen, poet &purpose, Cambridge House, Ibadan( 1962-66), Aftermath of a coup, running arms &advancing to death( Biafra 1966-67, the 276 page biography lays bare the making of Okigbo’s great poetry by unraveling the mythological, historical and psychological factors that moulded his very complex  personality and poetry.

Okigbo was a  victim of both cultural conflict and colonial education. His early upbringing was as tumultuous as riotous given the innate desires in him to challenge an over bearing Catholicism, which his Catholic headmaster father imposed on him and his other siblings, as well as his own psychological attempt to come to terms   with the emptiness he suffers from the age of four following the early death of his mother.

Okigbo’s biography  traces in this new work, how the search for fulfillment in the love denied heart of  young Okigbo became the fulcrum on which his poetic search or thirsting for fulfillment in women, in great poetry, in activism, in sports and politics revolved.

Nwankanma’s  biographical account, while trying to  do this great exposé, also uses the opportunity to tell the story of the colonial education, civil service and the birth of cultural  and social activisms in the country. Reading Thirsting for Sunlight is as good as reading the story of such other great personalities like Achebe, Soyinka, J.P.Clark, Ifeajuna, Gamaliel Onosode, Ralph Opara, Leslie Harriman, Ben Obunselu, all great writers,  technocrats and critics, whose lives and activities in one way or the other intersected with that of Okigbo to help define that great poetic canvass that  is celebrated in The Labyrinth.

Beyond  telling the story of Okigbo,  the book  also thoroughly reviews the structure of colonial education as represented by Government College, Umuahia and University College Ibadan, the schools that produced Okigbo , Achebe and Soynika some of the finest examples of properly educated  generation of Nigerians.

As evidenced from the biography, Okigbo’s  good education at Government College, Umuahia and the level of cordiality, he enjoyed  from his teachers and fellow students helped to inculcate in him the spirit of  confidence and culture of voracious reading, which goes to influencing every other of his intellectual desires in future life: either as a student at University College, Ibadan or as a Librarian at Nsukka or as a teacher at Fiditi College.

There are a lot of good things to say about Thirsting for Sunlight: Is it the beautiful language with which the biographer, Nwankanma uses to transport his  story or the beautiful painting  illustration titled, Coming and Going by multi media artist, Victor Ehikhmenor that adorn the front cover of the book or the well clean copy issued by HEBN Publishers?

This is indeed a good book and a very commendable effort by  Nwakanma. And am sure, he would not have satisfied only the yearnings of all post Okigbo children, who  have looked forward for this book, for a very long time, but will no doubt, make the day for the general reader, who likes to read good stories told in the best of flowery  language.