As Global Body Partners Foundation To Honour Iconic Poet
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) has officially partnered with the Christopher Okigbo Foundation to host a high-level commemorative event in honour of one of Africa’s most influential poets, Christopher Ifekandu Okigbo.
The event is scheduled hold on Wednesday, August 28, 2025, from 11:00am to 2:00pm, at the UNESCO Nigeria Office, UN Building, Abuja.
Holding in collaboration with the National Council for Arts and Culture (NCAC), the gathering is themed: ‘The Importance of Christopher Okigbo’s Nomination into the UNESCO Memory of the World Register and Its Impact on Nigeria’s Cultural Heritage and Literary History.’
This event is organised to celebrate Okigbo’s nomination into the UNESCO Memory of the World Register, a prestigious international recognition that highlights the significance of his literary manuscripts and contributions to world literature.
The Memory of the World (MoW) Programme is a UNESCO initiative established in 1992. The UNESCO Memory of the World Register recognises documentary heritage of global significance. It focuses on preserving documentary heritage – texts, audio-visual materials, library and archive holdings. MoW aims to safeguard it against loss and promote its preservation and accessibility. It’s a programme that acknowledges and protects valuable archives, library and museum collections worldwide. It also aims to combat collective amnesia, neglect, decay, and deliberate destruction of valuable documents.
According to UNESCO Director-General, Audrey Azoulay, “Documentary heritage is an essential yet fragile element of the memory of the world. This is why UNESCO invests in safeguarding—such as the libraries of Chinguetti in Mauritania or the archives of Amadou Hampâté Bâ in Côte d’Ivoire— shares best practices, and maintains this register that records the broadest threads of human history.”
The MoW Register lists items that meet specific criteria for world significance and outstanding universal value. The Register is a selective list of items judged to have outstanding universal value and world significance.
The commemorative event will feature: A keynote address. A thought-provoking panel session moderated, Spoken word and poetry performances inspired by Okigbo’s work, An exhibition showcasing rarely manuscripts, photographs, and visual tributes and Reflections on Christopher Okigbo and Igbo Spirituality
“This partnership between UNESCO and the Christopher Okigbo Foundation reflects our shared commitment to preserving and promoting Africa’s literary and cultural heritage,” said Ifeanyi Ajaegbo, a representative of UNESCO Nigeria. “Okigbo’s work is not only a national treasure but a global legacy.”
This celebration reaffirms the role of literature in preserving identity, promoting cultural dialogue, and advancing collective memory.
Christopher Ifekandu Okigbo (1932–1967) is widely regarded as one of Africa’s most original and profound poetic voices.
Born in Ojoto, Anambra State, Okigbo was not only a gifted poet but also a symbol of literary courage and cultural consciousness. His poetry, rich in Igbo spirituality, Greek mythology, and modernist technique, stands as a powerful bridge between the ancestral and the avant-garde.
Okigbo is regarded as the greatest Anglophonic, postcolonial, modernist African poet of the 20th-century. He has been established beyond all reasonable doubt not only in two major studies of his works but in tributes paid to him in a collection of memorial tributes (Don’t Let Him Die; An Anthology of Memorial Poems for Christopher Okigbo) co-edited by Africa’s most outstanding novelist, Chinua Achebe (1978). His major collection of poems was listed as one of the most influential 100 African literary world of the 20th-century.
The Christopher Okigbo Collection was added to the UNESCO Memory of the World International Register in 2007. This recognition was for his documentary heritage of global importance, including manuscripts, photographs, travel documents, and transcripts. The nomination was facilitated by his daughter, Obiageli, who established the Christopher Okigbo Foundation in 2005.
This year, there is a planned event in 2025 to celebrate Okigbo’s legacy and the inscription of his collection, but the inscription itself happened much earlier.
This year, UNESCO added 74 new documentary heritage collections to its Memory of the World Register, bringing the total number of inscribed collections to 570. The entries – from 72 countries and four international organisations – cover topics such as the scientific revolution, women’s contribution to history and major milestones of multilateralism.
The register consists of documentary collections including books, manuscripts, maps, photographs, sound or video recordings, which bear witness to the shared heritage of humanity.
Among the newly inscribed collections, fourteen pertain to scientific documentary heritage. Itḥāf Al-Mahbūb (submitted by Egypt) documents the Arab world’s contributions to astronomy, planetary movement, celestial bodies, and astrological analysis during the first millennium of our era. The archives of Charles Darwin (United Kingdom), Friedrich Nietzsche (Germany), Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen (Germany)—which contain the very first recorded X-ray photographs—and Carlos Chagas (Brazil), a pioneer in disease research, have also been included.
Other additions include collections relate to the memory of slavery, submitted by Angola, Aruba, Cabo Verde, Curaçao, and Mozambique, as well as archives concerning prominent historical women—still largely underrepresented on the register—such as girls’ education pioneer Raden Ajeng Kartini (Indonesia and the Netherlands), author Katherine Mansfield (New Zealand), and travel writers Annemarie Schwarzenbach and Ella Maillart (Switzerland).
Several collections document key moments in international cooperation, including the Geneva Conventions (1864–1949) and their protocols (1977–2005) (Switzerland), the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (United Nations), and the 1991 Windhoek Declaration (Namibia), a global reference for press freedom.
