Christopher Okigbo’s “Elegy for Slit-Drum,” a poem in the unfinished sequence Path of Thunder: Poems Prophesying War, is emblematic of his late work, in which the escalating political crisis in Nigeria plays a crucial role.

In the mid-1960s, ethnic tensions among the predominantly Muslim Hausa and Fulani peoples in the north, the Muslim and Christian Yoruba in the southwest, and the predominantly Christian Igbos in the southeast were exacerbated by widespread poverty and rumors of corruption in the national government. The poem was composed in May 1966 during the tumultuous period between the coup d’état of January 1966, led by the Igbo general Ironsi, which unseated the widely despised government of Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, and the countercoup of July 1966, led by General Yakubu Gowon.

In the days following the first coup there had been a genuine feeling of elation throughout the country, because Nigerians from all ethnic groups had hoped that a change in regime would enable a more unified national government. But accusations soon spread that General Ironsi had set out to serve only the Igbos rather than to represent all Nigerians. Ethnic tensions flared up again, leading to the countercoup, to massacres of Igbos, who fled to the southeast, and eventually to the secession of the southeastern region of Nigeria as the Republic of Biafra. The ensuing struggle is known as the Nigerian civil war, or the Biafran war (1967–70).

Okigbo’s poem comments on these current events, offering “condolences . . . from our swollen lips laden with / condolences” to those innocent people who were killed as part of General Ironsi’s coup. The speaker tells us, “the General has carried the day,” and “the elephant has fallen.” As in earlier poems, Okigbo uses images of the elephant and stone to symbolize forces that resist change, in this case the corrupt government brought down by Ironsi’s coup.

Christopher Okigbo

In the poem as in the rest of the poem sequence, the forces of change are represented by thunder. Throughout his career, Okigbo wrote about the intertwined forces of destruction and renewal, often through the vehicle of a priestly, questing speaker who enacts a ritualized search for enlightenment over the course of a poem sequence. Here, too, Okigbo identifies himself as the “oracle” who “enlightens” readers about the forces of creation and chaos at work in these political upheavals.

Speaking as an oracle, Okigbo worries that the same thunder that brought about this positive political change may also lead to more violence, warning, “Thunder that has struck the elephant can make a bruise.” For this reason, the poem repeats the mantra of “condolences”: the dead must be mourned but not used as motivation for further killing. As the oracle says, “we should forget the names / we should bury the date,” so that the country can move forward.

Sadly, as Okigbo feared, the violence did escalate, and he himself was killed while serving in the Biafran army in 1967.

Bibliography
Okafor, Dubem. The Dance of Death: Nigerian History and Christopher Okigbo’s Poetry. Trenton, N.J.: Africa World Press, 1998.
Okigbo, Christopher. “Elegy for Slit-Drum.” Labyrinths with Path of Thunder. Ibadan, Nigeria: Heinemann, 1971. Reprinted in The Heinemann Book of African Poetry in English, edited by Adewale Maja-Pearce. Oxford: Heinemann, 1990, 27–29.

Categories: British Literature, Literature