Gboyega Odubanjo: Poet to be awarded posthumous degree

Gboyega Odubanjo at the Barbican Young Poets rehearsal in 2019

An award-winning poet found dead after he went missing at a music festival will receive a posthumous degree, his family has revealed.

Gboyega Odubanjo, 27, was last seen at the Shambala Festival in Northamptonshire on 26 August.

He was due to perform the next day but did not arrive for his set, and was discovered dead five days later.

Gboyega had been studying for a PhD in creative writing at the University of Hertfordshire at the time of his death.

His brother Yomi and sister Rose say they will be attending his graduation in February, where he will be awarded his degree posthumously.

"When I look at my brother's life, I genuinely believe he lived the life that truly satisfied himself," Rose tells the BBC's If You Don't Know podcast.

"And there's not many things that I kind of think 'Oh, it's a shame he's not going to be able to do this'.

"We're really grateful they're still going to award him that PhD because they've seen the wealth of work that he'd produced."

Yomi agrees, and says he looks at his brother - who was from Dagenham in east London - as "the gift that keeps on giving".

"He will never be forgotten."

Rose and Yomi will be going to their brother Gboyega's (left) graduation on February

The university says it can award a doctorate posthumously if the work is close to being ready for submission or examination.

It made the decision because so much of Gboyega's creative work was in the public domain, or was about to be published.

"Gboyega was a wonderfully thoughtful and engaged student," says Dr Christopher Lloyd, one of Gboyega's supervisors on his course.

"He challenged me to think with more depth and more nuance, which is all you can want from the job really.

"I am so glad we can award Gboyega's degree, not only for his family and friends to see his work acknowledged but to credit Gboyega's important work within the university."

Listen to If You Don't Know on BBC Sounds

Listen to the latest If You Don't Know podcast to hear more from Gboyega's family on his life, achievements and legacy.

Northamptonshire Police said there were no suspicious circumstances surrounding Gboyega's death and an ongoing coroner's investigation is due to reconvene in April.

Rose says the cause of her brother's death is still unclear and is "something that we're still kind of working through and looking for the answers for".

"But my understanding is that he was due to perform at a festival and he'd gone out with friends and at some point they could no longer find him," she says.

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Gboyega's pamphlet Aunty Uncle Poems was a winner of the Poetry Business New Poets prize in 2020 and he'd also been the recipient of a Michael Marks pamphlet award.

This month, his song LDN GRLS is due to be released, which he features on with the artist Love Remain.

And his debut full-length poetry collection ADAM is also set to come out next summer - which focuses on the unsolved murder of an unidentified young African boy whose body was found in the River Thames in 2001.

Reflecting on her brother's life, Rose says he "was definitely for the people".

"He was never the loudest voice, but his voice was always heard and respected."

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