Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka and stakeholders in the literary world have commended the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation for including Christopher Okigbo’s collection in its Memory of the World Register in 2007.

They urged UNESCO to take further steps in promoting Mr Okigbo’s literary works for cultural exchange among continents.

The stakeholders gave advice at c themed ‘The Importance of Christopher Okigbo’s Nomination into the UNESCO Memory of the World Register and Its Impact on Nigeria’s Cultural Heritage and Literary History’.

The event was organised by the Christopher Okigbo Foundation and UNESCO in Abuja on Thursday.

Mr Okigbo, 1932-1967, was a Nigerian poet widely regarded as the greatest Anglophone, post-colonial, and modernist African poet of the 20th century.

Mr Okigbo was honoured with a prestigious MoW register following his collection, which includes manuscripts, handwritten and typed copies of previously published and unpublished poems, experimental writing, literary projects, sketches, and doodles.

Others include correspondence from Christopher Okigbo, journals, manuscripts of his contemporaries, travel documents, photographs, and typescripts of other interviews, among others, dating from 1956 to his death in 1967.

Mr Soyinka, the special guest of honour at the event, commended the Christopher Okigbo Foundation and UNESCO for organizing the commemorative event.

The poet, who presented a poem commemorating Okigbo, added that Okigbo’s literary works need to be celebrated and serve as a cultural exchange not only in Nigeria and Africa, but also on all continents worldwide.

Usman Akanbi, national president of the Association of Nigerian Authors, stated that some literary works produced by great writers, such as Mr Okigbo, should be shared with other continents to promote cultural exchange.

Mr Akanbi said, “There is a need to make some literary works produced by great writers like Okigbo available globally, not just to sit within Nigeria, not just to sit with the others of UNESCO. We should look to take it further, take it into other continents, so that there will be cultural exchange between us and other continents that have produced great writers like Okigbo.”

In his keynote address, Okey Ikechukwu stated that Okigbo’s inclusion in such a prestigious register reinforced his position not just as a national icon but as a figure of global literary significance.

According to him, it serves as a catalyst for cultural engagement, inspiring additional cultural events and public discourse.

“In addition to the foregoing, this listing by UNESCO reasserts the literary value of Okigbo, who is widely celebrated as Africa’s most original modernist poet in English. He blends Igbo spiritual orientation, Western myth, and modernist technique in his works. And his inclusion in MoW further enhances his standing as one of the major pioneers of postcolonial literary expression.

“His listing will hopefully help in Inspiring future generations, and motivating publishers, scholars, and artists to pay greater attention to his works and legacy,” Mr Ikechukwu said.

Also, Obiageli Okigbo, daughter and founder of the Christopher Okigbo Foundation, highlighted the uniqueness of Mr Okigbo’s literary works. She said Mr Okigbo’s poems combined his deep familiarity with the Western literary canon with his understanding of Igbo mythology, evoking richly naturalistic Igbo landscapes that carried symbolic reflections about his personal life.

“Numerous studies and tributes continue to attest to Christopher Okigbo’s significance and uniqueness in modern African letters, ranging from monographs on his work, articles, anthologies, biographies, book chapters, conferences, poetic and literary tributes published across the world, as well as doctoral and master’s dissertations at least.

“Against the foregoing background, the documents represent a much-awaited source of unique insights into hitherto unknown aspects of this outstanding poet’s life and art,” said Ms Okigbo.

The foundation’s founder said Okigbo’s collection possessed three main criteria: cultural value, historic value, and artistic value.

“For example, for cultural value, we found in the documents some experimental poems in my father’s mother tongue, Igbo, which validate present-day arguments for writing in African languages.

“There was also a documented proposal for a book on oral Igbo tradition, claiming it as an art in itself rather than a mere anthropological record.

“For the historic value, some of these papers were crucial for eliminating the finer nuances of Nigerian post-colonial history, politics, and artistic development. They relate to the crisis of 1962-1966, the emergence of Biafra in 1967, and the subsequent civil war of 1967-1970.

“For example, there are drafts of Okigbo’s anthem to Biafra, ‘Land of Our Birth’, and other documents like his dedication of Path of Thunder to the legendary heroes of the January 15 Revolution,” said the daughter.

According to her, for the artistic value, we found essays where he describes the tradition of African modernist poetry in English, of which he considers himself a representative, as blending the oral African and modern European traditions.

Ms Okigbo said, “So, you might say, where did these papers come from? Where did we get them? That’s the next thing. The original custodian was my uncle, Dr Pius Okigbo, who salvaged the remnants of papers and books from my father’s Enugu residence, which had been bombed in the outbreak of the Nigerian-Biafran crisis.

“As I was growing up, Uncle P, as we fondly called him, would tell me about a trunk that he had saved from the flames. But he never showed me. He just kept them like a nest, like a human nest.

“And later, when he passed in 2000, the search for the missing papers started, and finally, in 2003, they were legally validated and passed on to me. So, this was the first crucial passage from a family heritage to a public legacy.”

(NAN)