Okara whose 98th birthday should have been in April, never recovered after collapsing suddenly on Sunday.
The poet who has been battling increasing ill health due to his advanced age died in his sleep in his hometown of Yenega, Bayelsa State on Monday.
He will be remembered for his crosscutting literary work, The Voice, a 1964 novel which juxtaposes contemporary Western and African values in a contentious struggle for dominance.
Born in Yenega in 1921, Okara was educated at government collage Umuahia and became influenced by William Shakespeare.
Since his death, tributes have been pouring in thick and fast.
Nigerian publication, Sahara Reporters described him as one of the major pacesetters in Africa’s early literary scene.
The Vanguard referred to him as the “Nigerian negritudist”, who cemented his reputation as Anglophone Africa’s first modernist poet of the contemporary era.