NAME OF AUTHOR: EMMANUEL FRANK-OPIGO
BOOK(S):
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THE SONG OF OUR FATHER, Words Rhymes & Rhythm Publishers, 2018
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VOWELS IN THE AIR, Words Rhymes & Rhythm Publishers, 2016
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MASKS AND FACADES (poetry), 2010
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CLEAN YOUR ENGLISH (a text on common errors)
Genre(s): Prose, Poetry
Awards: Rivers State ANA Poetry Prize Winner (1995) for “FROTHY FACADES”
BIOGRAPHY:
Emmanuel Ayibaemi Frank-Opigo is a Fellow of the Nigerian Society of Engineers. He is the Director of Works and Services in the Niger Delta University, Wilberforce Island, Bayelsa State. He served as Commissioner for Works and Transport in Bayelsa State from 2007 to 2011. He was the Chairman of the Bayelsa State Chapter of the Association of Nigerian Authors from 2013 to 2015 and the Editor-in-Chief of the Association’s journal, The Mariner, from 2013 to 2017. His other published works include Masks and Facades (poetry), Vowels in the Air (essays) and Clean Your English (text).
He attended Enitonna High School, Port Harcourt (1972–1976) where he was Senior Prefect and Editor of the school’s magazine The Dove; Federal Government College, Port Harcourt (1976–1978) for his Higher School Certificate, where he was Editor of the school’s literary magazine Bits of Greenery; and the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (1979–1984) where he studied Civil Engineering and was a member of The Nsukka Conference of Creative Artists. He subsequently worked in General Endeavours Ltd, Ondo (NYSC), Frank and Sons Ltd, Project Engineering Associates, the Shell Petroleum Development Company Ltd (all in Port Harcourt) and currently is at the Niger Delta University in Bayelsa State. He was the founding Editor-in-Chief of the University magazine NDUdigest.
In 2005/6, taking dictations over a period of several months, he worked with his father to produce the latter’s memoir, Down River Nun, an exercise he found very fulfilling. The memoir, according to former Bayelsa State Governor Chief D. S. P. Alamieyeseigha, reads like a novel. In The Song of Our Father, the son has retold that story in poetic form, making it even more pungent with rhyme and rhythm. The Song of Our Father not only tells a story but also protests injustice, which is aptly summarized in the satire in the Appendix: Where Is Chief Frank-Opigo Road?
Emmanuel Frank-Opigo was the winner of the first Poetry Prize of the Rivers State Chapter of the Association of Nigerian Authors in 1995. His collection, Frothy Facades (now Masks and Facades) contains poetry spanning from the 1970s through the 1990s. Within the same period Frank-Opigo, a board games enthusiast, equally invented games, obtaining a Nigerian patent in 1980 and a United States patent in 1997 trademarked Majority, a game about elections in the United States.
