Bookshelf: ‘Why we’ll miss Ikeogu Oke’
Award-winning poet, Ikeogu Oke’s death on Saturday 24 November was a shock to many writers across the country. Here, a few share reasons why they will miss him.
This week didn’t begin on a good note as news of the death of award-winning poet, Ikeogu Oke at age 51 hit both traditional and social media. The poet, who was awarded $100,000 as winner of the 2017 Nigerian Prize for Literature for his book of poetry, ‘The Heresiad’ died at National Hospital in Abuja.
Shockingly, it seems Oke knew he was going to die. On September 16, he wrote an epitaph on Facebook and tagged Okey Ndibe (author of ‘Never Look an American in the Eye’) and 33 others. It read: “My Epitaph. Here lies a man who loved virtue and art. And gave to both his fortunes and his heart. Ikeogu Oke (1967 -).”
Denja Abdullahi (ANA president, poet/playwright)
His death shook the literary community as can be deduced from the outpour of tributes in the cyberspace. It is because he practically lived a life of total commitment to his art of poetry. We will miss Ikeogu’s penchant for seeing poetry in everything and his ardour for performing poetry at every given opportunity. His strong opinions on issues, often against the grain, that can hardly be compartmentalised, will be missed.
Salamatu Sule (children’s writer/ poet)
Ikeogu is one of the finest poets God gave us. I can’t still think of him in the past tense and the reality that he is no more. We travelled with him during the Efuru @50 event and he performed and made us laugh. He believed Dr Okediran when he told him his work was a Magnum Opus and we persuaded him to enter for a prize. He eventually won because he deserved to win. Ikeogu always heeded to national calls, especially where art is involved. He would be greatly missed.
Soji Cole (Playwright/2018 NLNG winner)
We had several creative meetings but we never got to meet physically. Our works have appeared together in local and international anthologies. Then, five days after I won the Nigeria Prize for Literature, a baton I collected from you, you made that historic call to me. You congratulated and enthused about your joy that I was the one declared the winner for this year. You told me you had a reason for my preference and there are things we have to do together. I asked why your voice was husky and you told me that you were recovering from a surgery. Flash-forward, only one month after, I am writing an elegy for you. I will remember your goodwill forever man! May your soul find peaceful repose Ikeogu.
Wale Okediran (former ANA president/author
Ikeogu and I have been friends for over 20 years now. Despite our age difference I always saw him as a very good friend. Apart from the literary connection we had, we bonded on personal terms. Whenever he told me his life story, I was always impressed about how he was able to put himself through school although he came from a deprived background. Along the line I got to know him more, as a very courageous and enterprising young man. He was one of the very few Nigerian writers who lived solely from their writing for several years, even before he won the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas sponsored prize. I found him to be a very useful and patriotic Nigerian who never took sides because of ethnicity or religion.
Many of the literary projects I did, particularly in celebration of Achebe’s books or anything that has to do with national or literary events, he was always a member of my team. He was very selfless. You can call on him in the last minute and go to sleep certain he will deliver. Like many talented personalities, he had some unorthodox ways to the extent that some people used to report to me any time he offends them. But I understood him very much. Aside from his creativity, he was a very passionate individual who always called a spade, a spade.
When he showed me the manuscript of his award-winning book, I took one look and asked him a simple question, “Ikeogu, are you the author of this book? Did you plagiarise this or you wrote it yourself ?” The moment he told me he wrote it, I said “look, my friend this is your magnus opus, this is the work of a genius, you should go and enter it for the NLNG prize. Even though that time it wasn’t published and he didn’t have the means, I supported him to make sure he did and he eventually entered it for the prize. I’m still mourning him. The sickness that took him away was diagnosed barely five months ago and we all thought he would recover. He is leaving a very young family. I think his youngest child is a two-year-old daughter, and the eldest is just about 10 or 12. To us, this is a very painful incident, and we pray that God will give us his friends and family the ability to overcome this grief and the means to take care of the family he has left behind.