There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra

Christopher fell in August 1967, in Ekwegbe, close to Nsukka, where his poetry had come to sudden flower seven short years earlier. News of his death sent ripples of shock in all directions. Okigbo’s exit was totally in character. Given the man and the circumstance it was impossible for everyone to react to the terrible loss in the same way. The varied responses, I think, would have pleased Okigbo enormously, for he enjoyed getting to his destination through different routes.4

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I remember visiting Okpara Avenue, the site of the Citadel Press, soon after the war, and I was appalled at the scale of destruction that had befallen that small building. It is important to mention that a number of buildings in the vicinity had been unscathed by the conflict, but this one was pummeled into the ground; chips of the concrete blocks scattered everywhere had been pulverized as if with a jackhammer. It was the work of someone or some people with an ax to grind. It appeared as if there was an angry mission sent to silence the Citadel—for having the audacity to publish How the Leopard Got Its Claws—a book that challenged the very essence of the Nigerian federation’s philosophy, depicting the return of the spurned former ruler to vanquish and retake his throne from the wretched and conniving usurper. Having had a few too many homes and offices bombed, I walked away from the site and from publishing forever.

A few months later my friends Arthur Nwankwo and Samuel Ifejika decided to establish a publishing company that they called Nwamife Books. One of the new company’s first publications was a compendium of stories that chronicled the harrowing war years. I submitted a contribution to that important anthology, and then took the opportunity to persuade them to publish How the Leopard Got Its Claws. They agreed. The talented Scandinavian Per Christiansen illustrated for the work, and effectively united the prose and poetry in a visual consonance. I was grateful to see the manuscript Christopher and I had worked so hard on back in print.

MANGO SEEDLING

Through glass windowpane

Up a modern office block

I saw, two floors below, on wide-jutting

concrete canopy a mango seedling newly sprouted

Purple, two-leafed, standing on its burst

Black yolk. It waved brightly to sun and wind

Between rains—daily regaling itself

On seed yams, prodigally.

For how long?

How long the happy waving

From precipice of rainswept sarcophagus?

How long the feast on remnant flour

At pot bottom?

Perhaps like the widow

Of infinite faith it stood in wait

For the holy man of the forest, shaggy-haired

Powered for eternal replenishment.

Or else it hoped for Old Tortoise’s miraculous feast

On one ever recurring dot of cocoyam

Set in a large bowl of green vegetables—

This day beyond fable, beyond faith?

Then I saw it

Poised in courageous impartiality

Between the primordial quarrel of Earth

And Sky striving bravely to sink roots