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uine martyr who gives his life in the service of his community. Evidence from his poetry shows that what is misconstrued as a haunting death-wish is actually the poet’s paradoxical sense of envitalizing dejection over the
impending national catastrophe, his will to tragic heroism, and the transmogrification of the military
into a monstrous force, all of which leaves him in a state of disgust and destructive anger. Thus are we left with the realization that there is a clear boundary between the death-wish and the desire to fight to the death. And for offering himself to fight to the death rather than watch in idiotic humility the genocide perpetrated against his community, Christopher Okigbo fully merits the rousing paeans sung in his honour as one of the greatest martyrs of our age.
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