OKIGBO, 
FIDITI AND I 
Okigbo provided the turning point in Fiditi Grammar School, to which I, as 
principal had invited Christopher 
his life and was the launching pad from 
which his poetic soul leapt, liberated and 
unbound into the freedom of the muse's and 
the prolific productivity of the avant garde 
he became. 
Christopher and myself had met and become 
friends in March, 1955 when I took temporary 
residence in Mellanby Hall, University 
College, Ibadan (now University of Ibadan) 
while I was doing some post-graduate research 
work on Keats and Tennyson in the 
Africana section of the University Library. 
Our friendship flourished everlastingly and 
may be that is why I have not yet been able to 
gather myself together to write on him. 
Christopher left the Federal Civil Service in 
1958 because of the hypocrisy of the colonial 
system of those times. He had worked as a 
Marketing Manager in the Nigerian Tobacco 
Company in charge of vast areas of the then 
Western Region before joining the administrative 
service of the Federal Government. 
As a staff in the private sector he had incorporated 
a company, Kitson and Co. ever 
before joining the government. On joining 
the Federal Government, however, the company 
had not been dissolved and some finicky 
colleagues made mountains out of this 
. and he had to leave the civil service: 
This was the most depressed and I would say 
the only depressed period of his life. In the 
'50s, government were the all-powerful employers, 
the private sector was still very 
diminished, a reversal of the present day 
dispensation. I had been invited from Ijebu- 
Ode Grammar School at Christmas 1956 to 
Fiditi Grammar School to be Principal be 
Chief A. O. Adeyi who had just been appointed 
a Minister of Local Government by 
Chief Obafemi Awolowo. Christopher had 
visited me at Ijebu-Ode on several occasions 
and once with his wife, Princess Judith Sefi 
Adah, 
As soon as news reached me of his plight and 
knowing the likely opprobrium this will generate 
in the limited circle of elites in colonial 
Lagos, I drove to his residence at Igbosere 
(Lagos) and stayed for a week with him and 
convinced him to come with me to Fiditi 
Grammar School at Fiditi near Oyo. He agreed 
and I got the Board of Governors of the 
school to appoint him as my Vice-Principal. 
I put him in charge of Arts Department and he 
taught Latin and Greek. The one student 
presented in 1959 WASC had an 'A'. An 
indigence of Fiditi on the staff protested in 
Greek the status I accorded him but I stood 
my grounds and the gentleman and I let go. 
The highest class at Fiditi Grammar School 
when he joined in 1958 was form five and the 
first set of students for the WASCE were yet 
to be presented in December 1959. He therefore 
had two years of a new lease of life. 
Using the advantage that the school was a 
community institution, we provided more 
that he would have earned in government and 
other emoluments as inducement. I put him 
in charge of sports and football, got him to 
celebrated Taslim Balogun to coach our 
school football team. 
I had been writing poems since 1955 and I 
continued more in 1958 and I showed him 
my own poems at which he expressed great 
pleasure. We used to read these and other 
Fiditi Grammar School, to which I, as principal had 
invited Christopher Okigbo provided the turning point 
in his life and was the launching pad from which his 
poetic soul leapt, liberated and unbound into the freedom 
of the muse's and the prolific productivity of the 
avant garde he became. 
poems together. T. S. Elliot's Ash Wednesday 
was the greatest source of inspiration 
and he used to point out the magical imageries 
such as 'the smoke from the chimneys rubbing 
its muscles on the wall' or such idiomatic 
phraseology as 'one night cheap sawdust 
restaurant'. He would then burst into 
peals of infectious and electric laughter. 
Such was his popularity with students and 
staff and the success of all endeavours on 
which he put his hand that this succeeded in 
bringing him from the depths of despair to 
the brilliant daylight of creativity. I invited in 
turns academic members of Classics Department 
of University College, Ibadan to give 
lectures to the boys of Fiditi Grammar School 
on classical times and literature including 
Professor Ferguson, Head of Department, 
Dr. Classen, Professor Esan, Dr. Thompson, 
Mr H. F. Guite, etc. I made him play host to 
them all. 
His football team included the elder 
Odegbami, a.k.a. 'Key to Soccer', who was 
mentor to Nigeria's Segun Odegbami. His 
team beat all schools around including the 
1959 winners of Thermogene Cup, Ahmadiya 
College, Agege. This was an all-Nigeria cup 
competition for full-fledged grammar schools 
which Fiditi was yet to be. To crown it all, 
that self same team beat the University College, 
Ibadan first eleven twelve (12) goals to 
nil (0). The UCI team included Professor 
David Oke (a senator during the Second 
Republic in Nigeria), Dr. Edozien, former 
Economic Adviser to President Shagari, the 
Second Republic civilian president. 
With his versatility, he was able to participate 
at the highest level in sporting, poetic, 
intellectual and social activities fully at Fiditi 
without the pretensions or inhibitions of civil 
40
service or marketing distractions or boisterous 
Lagos. 
Christopher Okigbo after six months stay 
and returning to an academic career soon 
found his life to begin again, he and myself 
would go to join his brother, the world renowned 
economist. Dr. Pius Okigbo who 
had just returned from teaching and research 
in Oxford. Wheneverwecametolbadan. Dr. 
Okigbo would read passages from modern 
American poets to us till the little hours of the 
morning while we drank strong coffee and 
whiskey. 
In those years, I invited young academics 
from the University College, Ibadan to teach 
the boys of Fiditi. Such academics included 
Professor Alex Boyo who taught Biology, 
Dr. Patrick Amenechi who had just obtained 
a first class degree in Chemistry and was 
working on his Masters. All the boys who 
offered Chemistry scored distinction. We 
had invited Emmanuel Ifeajuna to the staff, 
but he later joined the army. 
This constant flow of intellectuals through 
Fiditi provided a most desirable and profit- 
Little wonder that he dedicated his first efforts in poetry to the boys at Fiditi Grammar 
SchooUo whom it would have been a permanent injury if I had allowed Obi Nwakamma's 
left-handed compliment to pass uncorrected both for rime and eternity and indeed the 
immortal soul of Christopher Okigbo. 
The Fiditi Grammar School staff with the principal, Cheif Alex Olu Ajayi in the middle fr»nt row and Christopher Okigbo to his left. 
able interaction for an intellectual companionship 
for Christopher. 
J. P. Clark used to spend nights with us and 
we would read aloud some attempts at budding 
Black Orpheus. It was indeed a great 
Transport of delight to watch Christopher 
evolve out of the turbulent past into the 
spiritual refreshment which he received from 
the auspicious circumstances and sylvan tranquillity 
of Fiditi. His faculties were fully 
satisfied, his interest well supplied in all 
facets. His return to academia at Fiditi had 
served sits inimitable purpose and provided 
the required leverage for his genius. 
Little wonder therefore that at Fiditi, 
Christopher had burst into numbers and into 
poesy. Little wonder that he began writing 
his poem, Debtor's Lane at Fiditi. Little 
wonder that he dedicated his first efforts in 
poetry to the boys at Fiditi Grammar School 
to whom it would have been a permanent 
injury if I had allowed Obi Nwakamma's 
left-handed compliment to pass uncorrected 
both for rime and eternity and indeed the 
immortal soul of Christopher Okigbo. 
During the Easter holidays of 1959, I requested 
Okigbo to accompany me on a grand 
tour of Eastern Nigeria to enable me know 
my country more and to meet Chinua Achebe, 
who was then at the Nigerian Broadcasting 
Service, Enugu, writing his second novel, No 
Longer at Ease the draft of which he showed 
us. I was at the time doing a write-up on the 
Beginning of Novel Writing in West Africa 
for the University of Durham, with the 
guidance of Professor M. Mahood, then Head 
of English Department, University College, 
Ibadan. 
This tour was a follow-up to a previous visit 
I had made with Okigbo to George Laming 
the West Indian novelist who had just published 
his novel Of Age and Innocence. That 
meeting had been arranged for me by Professor 
Alex Boyo of University College, Ibadan 
where Laming was giving a series of lectures. 
The journey to the East afforded Okigbo 
the opportunity to meet many of his friends 
and relations at Onitsha, Ojoto, Ogidi, Enugu, 
Orlu, Mgbidi, Owerri, Aba and Port-Harcourt 
where we anchored for days. The trip buoyed 
up his spirit and gave his friends and relations 
renewed confidence in his future. GR 
41