Ogaga Ifowodo wins $100,000 Nigeria Prize for Literature with poetry collection

Ogaga Ifowodo has won the 2026 Nigeria Prize for Literature, worth $100,000, for his poetry collection Why Does God Need a Gun? He was named the winner at Nigeria LNG Limited’s Grand Award Night in Lagos on Friday, 9 October 2026, Premium Times and Business Post reported.

The collection, published by Masobe Books, was chosen from 223 entries, according to Premium Times and Brittle Paper.

The prize, sponsored by NLNG since 2004, rotates each year between prose fiction, poetry, drama and children’s literature, and this year’s edition was devoted to poetry, Premium Times reported. NLNG’s managing director, Adeleye Falade, described it at the ceremony as one of Africa’s most prestigious literary honours, The Lagos Review reported.

The win caps a long road for Ifowodo. He reached the final three in 2017 with A Good Mourning, when the prize went to Ikeogu Oke for The Heresiad, according to Premium Times and Business Post.

What did the judges say about the winning book?

Professor Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo, chair of the prize’s advisory board, described the winning collection as a sensitive portrayal of religious and political violence in Nigeria, told through the voice of an imagined victim, Premium Times and Business Post reported.

When the shortlist was announced in August, the judges praised the book’s “tripartite structure of body, mind and spirit”, The Guardian reported.

Of the three finalists, Adimora-Ezeigbo said: “Equally compelling is the conversation that unfolds across the three books.” She said they shared concerns including identity, nationhood, extremism, displacement and conflict, according to The Lagos Review.

Who were the other finalists?

Ifowodo beat James Ngwu Eze, shortlisted for Unbind Me Now, and Tares Oburumu, shortlisted for Flora’s Love Colony. The three were picked in August from an 11-title longlist announced in July, The Guardian reported.

At the time, Adimora-Ezeigbo said: “Arriving at the final three from 223 submissions was a demanding task for the judges.”

Who is Ogaga Ifowodo?

Ifowodo is a poet, lawyer and activist whose work examines Nigeria’s political history, violence, displacement and memory, Premium Times reported. He trained as a lawyer before earning an MFA in poetry and a PhD in English at Cornell University in the United States, according to Brittle Paper.

He has published six books of poetry, Brittle Paper reported, including Homeland and Other Poems, Madiba and The Oil Lamp, each of which won an Association of Nigerian Authors poetry prize.

Who else won on the night?

Filmmakers Peter Oghenetega Oke and Feranmi Abiola were named joint winners of the first Nigeria Prize for Creative Arts, sharing $20,000 for their documentaries Beyond Tarkwa Bay and Mara Mania. The two films were chosen from 98 submissions on the theme “Identity”, Premium Times and Business Post reported.

Joel Kachi Benson, technical adviser to the creative arts prize’s advisory board, said: “These documentaries transported us into communities often unseen. They amplified voices too often unheard.”

Falade told the audience: “Through this prize, Nigerian writers have demonstrated that our stories are far more than accounts of where we come from.” The Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka also spoke, calling for closer collaboration between the humanities and the sciences, Business Post reported.

What happens next

Ifowodo takes home the $100,000 prize, and Why Does God Need a Gun? is available from Masobe Books, which lists it on its website.

With poetry done for this cycle, the prize moves to another genre in 2027 under its four-year rotation. Watch for NLNG’s call for entries, and for whether the new creative arts prize, launched this year with documentaries, returns for a second edition.