Award Winning Poet, Gabriel Okara dies @ 98

One of Nigeria’s foremost writers, poets and novelists, Dr Gabriel Imomotimi Gbaingbain Okara, is dead.

 

Gabriel Imomotimi Okara (24 April 1921 – 25 March 2019) was a Nigerian poet and novelist who was born in Bumoundi in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State. The first Modernist poet of Anglophone Africa, he is best known for his early experimental novel, The Voice (1964), and his award-winning poetry, published in The Fisherman's Invocation (1978) and The Dreamer, His Vision (2005). In both his poems and his prose, Okara drew on African thought, religion, folklore and imagery, and he has been called "the Nigerian Negritudist". According to Brenda Marie Osbey, editor of his Collected Poems, "It is with publication of Gabriel Okara's first poem that Nigerian literature in English and modern African poetry in this language can be said truly to have begun.

The deceased, who died at the age of 98, was the life patron of the Association of Nigerian Authors.

The Bayelsa State chapter of the ANA, in a statement by its chairman, Mrs Bina Ilagha, confirmed Okara’s death.

Ilagha said, “The association is ruffled by the news of his death because it came at a time when preparations are in top gear to celebrate his masterpiece, ‘The Voice at 55.’

 “We are saddened by the news but are consoled that he left behind lofty legacies. Pa Okara, through his literary exploits, put Bayelsa on the map of literary excellence.”

Also, the speech writer to the Bayelsa State governor and one-time chairman of the ANA, Mr Michael Afenfia, in a statement in Yenagoa, said, “It is with great sadness that I received the news of the passing away of the renowned poet and novelist, Gabriel Okara.

“Even in passing, I am sure your poem, “Piano and Drums,” will ‘minister’ to me in many ways. Your words are an inspiration! Your concerns about the African culture in the face of western ‘threat’ as expressed in “Once Upon a Time” are ever before me.

“Thank you for leaving us with so much to remember of your time here with us. Thank you for setting the pace for several generations of writers.”

Also the Bayelsa State Governor, Seriake Dickson, described Okara’s death as a great loss to the state and Nigeria.

The governor subsequently declared three-day mourning for the late Okara begining from Monday to Wednesday with all flags flown at half-mast in the state.

A statement by the Commissioner for Information and Orientation, Daniel Iworiso-Markson, quoted the governor to have made the remark on Monday.

“Okara was held in high esteem as a pride to the Niger Delta and indeed the African Continent. It is in appreciation of his exploits that the government decided to name the State Cultural Centre in Yenagoa after him. The late Okara will be greatly missed by all lovers of literature and intellectualism especially the young and upcoming writers,” the statement read in part.

The governor assured that his government would support the deceased family to give the writer, who hails from the state, a befitting burial.