By Prisca Sam-Duru
The 2026 edition of the Nigeria Prize for Literature nears its climax parading three poets, three different obsessions, but one common urgency — to hold a mirror to Nigeria.
James Ngwu Eze writes against fear and silence. Tares Oburumu interrogates the colonial name we still bear. Ogaga Ifowodo asks a disturbingly simple question: Why does God need a gun?
These three voices; authors of Unbind Me Now, Flora’s Love Colony and Why Does God Need a Gun? — are the finalists for the 2026 Nigeria Prize for Literature, worth $`100,000 and sponsored by Nigeria LNG Limited.
They emerged from 223 entries to make a longlist of 11, and finally, a shortlist of three. The winner will be announced this October.
Ahead of the final verdict, the trio spoke about their journeys, during an interview following the 2026 Book Party organised by CORA in partnership with NLNG, where excerpts from the 11 longlisted books were performed by young poets.
The Nigeria Prize for Literature, established in 2004, rotates yearly among Prose Fiction, Poetry, Drama and Children’s Literature. Its Advisory Board is chaired by Prof. Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo.
James Ngwu Eze: Poetry As Protest
For Eze, Unbind Me Now did not start as a book. It started as outrage.
He had been gathering poems since 2019, but Nigeria’s relentless cycle of violence including Lekki Toll Gate, farmer-herder clashes, Ruga, kidnappings, insecurity, pushed him into what he calls a creative outburst.
“When there is terror, people’s freedom shrinks,” Eze said. “People woke up every morning expecting a horrible breaking news. It became a deadly experience for everybody.”
The title itself is a demand. The poetic voice speaks for the displaced, the bereaved, the violated; people asking to be unbound, not tomorrow, but now.
Why poetry? Because, he says, poetry compresses what a novel would take chapters to say.
“The poet has the gift of compressing emotions into a few lines of verse with the right emotion,” he noted.
Eze never imagined he would make the final three from 223 entries. He calls it “an act of God.” He insists he does not write for prizes and is already working on a new collection.
He credits NLNG for giving poetry glamour and visibility.
“NLNG has glamorised poetry and made it attractive to everyone,” he said. Making the longlist before, he added, opened doors for him.
His counsel to young poets: Read, relentlessly.
Tares Oburumu: The Woman Who Named Nigeria
Oburumu’s curiosity began with a name — Flora Shaw.
Who was Lord Lugard’s wife who coined the name Nigeria? That question led him into the archives of amalgamation and beyond, into a full tracing of Nigeria from its colonial conception to its present contradictions.
“I needed to trace Nigerian history from the beginning, from the origin to present day,” he said.
Flora’s Love Colony is therefore a post-colonial inquiry, examining how colonialism still shapes our politics and identity.
Writing since 2010, Oburumu — who studied Philosophy and Religion at the University of Benin — grew up with classics like Things Fall Apart, Chike and the River and Treasure Island. But books were scarce. He did not have real access to them until he was 14. In his primary school, pupils sometimes sat on mud floors.
That memory drives him. After winning an earlier prize, he started building a library for his hometown primary school. If he wins the `$100,000, he wants to complete it.
“The first thing that came into my mind was that there comes an opportunity to finish my project and do something for the children,” he said.
For young writers, his advice is blunt: Reading shapes a writer more than writing. Stay consistent and passionate.
Ogaga Ifowodo: When Faith Carries a Rifle
Ifowodo’s title is a question that answers itself.
Why Does God Need a Gun? If God is all-powerful, why do humans kill to defend Him?
The idea was conceived during the revision of his collection, particularly a sequence of 26 poems titled From the Forest of a Million Demons, Leah Sharibu Lifts the Veil.
The poet persona gives voice to victims of terrorism and abduction, echoing Chibok and Dapchi. It confronts religious intolerance, fundamentalism and the dangerous belief that those who worship differently deserve less life.
Making the final three, for him, is validation that his work has found an audience, after 223 entries.
But Ifowodo is philosophical about winning.
“Winning is not in itself an ultimate judgment on your work,” he said. Some prize-winners fade; some overlooked books endure.
He is currently working on three projects: a work of fiction, his detention memoirs, and a new poetry collection that may explore love.
If he wins, he plans to endow a poetry prize at Federal Government College, Warri, where he wrote his first poem in 1982.
Beyond the $100,000
For all three finalists, the prize is bigger than money. It is visibility, recognition, and a louder microphone for urgent conversations about insecurity and freedom, colonial hangovers, and faith weaponised into violence.
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