Christopher Okigbo

Christopher Okigbo was a renowned poet, teacher, and musician born in 1932 in Ojoto, Nigeria. Okigbo studied Classics at the University of Ibadan before working as a teacher and librarian. He later accepted a role at Cambridge University Press and was an active member of the Mbari Literary Club alongside Chinua Achebe, with whom he founded Citadel Press. When the Nigerian–Biafran War broke out in 1967, Okigbo volunteered to fight for Biafra's independence but was killed in combat the same year. He was posthumously awarded the National Order of Merit of Biafra.