The Nigeria Prize for Literature sponsored by Nigeria LNG Limited (NLNG), is a prestigious award honoring for outstanding literary works by Nigerian author, where the likes of Tares Oburumu, James Eze and Ogaga Ifowodo made the NLNG Longlist of three poetry authors.
In an interview session with the three shortlisted authors who are in contention for this year’s Prize in poetry. They spoke about there works, creative journeys and perspectives on contemporary Nigerian poetry, ahead of the announcement of the winner.
Tares Oburumu, hails from Yenagoa, is a poet, an essayist and a playwright. A graduate from the University of Benin, class of 2010. I studied philosophy and religion.
In 2002, I won the Silliman Facebook Prize for African Poetry, the Gap Poetry Prize, and I’ve been published in a lot of journals and magazines, both offline and online, and two-time Pushcart Prize nominee. And also, I’m a mentor to about a thousand-plus young Nigerian poets, with seven chapbooks of poetry published so far. No, this is my first time.
You know, it’s been a long time. The prize has been established for a very long time. We are very familiar with a lot of names that have won the prize, two that have been on the long list and short list.
It’s a year-by-year thing, yearly thing for drama, for poetry. And we have aspirations towards these directions as well. So I think any writer of Nigerian origin presently writing, I don’t think you will not feel excited when you see your name on the long list.
So when I saw my name on the long list, I was excited, I feel very excited. Okay, now that you’re finally on the short list. Hmm.
When I saw my name on the first list, I was a little bit skeptical of, or riddled, because I thought the long list would be the end for me. Looking at the names that were on the list, some were assistant professors, some were, some have written a lot of books, more than as I have. Some were abroad, the professors, some have done their masters.
So when I look at the list, I think we were 11, 11 on the list, and about four of us were home-based. And the rest were schooling abroad. A lot of them have, they have done their masters and the rest.
So when you see your name on that list, it is daunting, you understand? You’re kind of skeptical if they’re going to make you true to the short list. So when I finally find my name on the short list, I was shocked. I was shocked at those.
And at the same time, I was excited also. I feel very extraordinary, you know, understand? Being among Ogaga and Eze, I have been in the field for a very long time before I made a entrance. Okay.
Finally, on the short list, there are three people standing, and the prize has taken, How do you see it?
Eze is one of those dreams, like I said, of every Nigerian writer, you know, to be a winner or to be on the long list or the short list of NLNG prize. And this prize has opened a lot of doors for us, a lot of doors, a lot of enthusiasm within the cream of young Nigerian writers, even the established ones.
So seeing your name on the short list, being shortlisted, is a recognition as well, a validation for some. But for me, it’s not a validation. And if my book being published and is being recognized to this level, I think my validation will come when those who pick up the book and read, you know, have something that, you know, touch their lives.
So what’s the title of your new book?
This is the new book on the short list, Flora’s Love Colony.
Tell us more about it? Flora’s Love Colony, your new book.
You know, a lot of Nigerians, they don’t know how the name Nigeria came about.
And mostly when you go into the society, into the Nigerian society, present day Nigeria, so to speak, if you divide the country into, let’s say, three parts, I don’t think two parts will understand where the name comes from. We are all just saying Nigeria, we belong to a country. The name of our country is Nigeria, but most people don’t know how the name came about.
I saw all that, and then when I was reading, I came across an article written by Flora Shaw, that is the wife of Frederick, the one who was involved in amalgamating the protectors that became Nigeria later on, before it was the Royal Niger Company. So a lot of, and this, you know, there was a time we made, the country made an attempt to scrap history out of the secondary school curriculum. And I was asking what was, you know, what informed the idea of, you know, striking a subject that would help the students, you know, to know better, their country better.
And I found out that a lot of people don’t know how Nigeria came about. It was Flora that gave us the name Nigeria. So on finding that out, I decided to write a book about the whole thing.
You know, the naming came in 1914. And the naming came before the 1914. It was in the 1914, it was 1914 that the amalgamation came into being, where they had to bring all the protectors together.
And then after bringing up all the regions, the protectors together, the name Nigeria struck, even right after independence. So I was like asking, because if you look intently, if you look closely at most of the African countries that were colonized at that time, like Dahomey, they changed theirs to Benin Republic. Then Ghana was Gold Coast.
And a lot of other African countries, but Nigeria stuck with us. And when the name was given, there was no consultation with the people. Because I was asking, were there not brilliant people enough at that time to call to the table and chart our common destiny, that the woman would just pick up a name and call us.
And that stuck. And then that stuck even right after independence. Then post-colonial Nigeria, which is the present age we are, the name kept ringing.
But I think it’s the British imposition of their culture, their belief and attitude on us. So that is the whole thing about Flora’s Love Colony.
On a final note, what’s so unique about your book?
That is left for the writers, the readers to find out. You know, not me, because in it I wrote about a lot of…
How do you convince your readers to go out there and get a copy of your new book?
I think it’s on a historical perspective. If you really want to know the history of Nigeria, from the pre-colonial times to the colonial times, the influences to the post-colonial, the Biafra War, the little skirmishes here and there, it’s not just in the north. I think you should pick up the book.
How do you feel being mentioned as the winner of the book?
Well, it’s a dream. It should be a dream come true. Because even right before now, I have a third project that is uncompleted. It’s not yet completed. And there’s a history to that. And reasons why I want to build a library for secondary school students and PPs.
And that is one of the reasons when my name came up on the long chart list. I was excited because I think that dream is about to be fulfilled. So if I pronounced winner, I think it will do a lot good to the children.
Because I’ve already informed them that at least before the end of this year, I’ll be able to finish the project and start the library with the other books. Okay. So you have the dream of building a library.
That money is too much for the library. Apart from the library, what other thing would you intend to use the money for? I think for now, I don’t know. But the most pronounced idea in my head is how to finish my project and then the rest will follow.
Is it legal to say away? It’s in my village, Delta State. So it should be a dream come true if you come at that day to be this time. Yeah, it should be a dream come true.
Before the 11th, there were many entries. So what is your encouragement to people who did not make it to this level? What advice do you have for them?
They should keep writing. Writing is about being consistent. You fail, you get up, you write. You fail, you get up, you write. Consistency wins. And when consistency wins, you win equally. So I think you consistently write. You put up efforts.
You keep submitting. Not just the NLNG prize. There are a lot of prizes out there.
We have the Booker Prize, Booker T Prize. Also, there are notable prizes spread around the world. So consistency is all in the game.
If you are not consistent, if you give up, you don’t know the next thing, the big thing that awaits you. So I think my advice is consistency. Keep writing, keep influencing life, keep touching lives, keep dreaming.
So how long have you been writing this?
I started writing when I finished my university. When I started writing serious, when I went into serious writing. But initially, I started writing during my formative years.
And it wasn’t that serious because, like I said, as I have always said in these interviews, that I started reading from age 14 because I schooled in the village. I wasn’t privileged to school in the cities. And in my village, we don’t have nursery school.
We start from primary one. And even at that, we have no access to books. There’s no school library.
And most of the time, we sit on the floor, on the mud floor to have our classes. So I wasn’t fortunate to have a book to read. I think that must have delayed the time I started writing officially.
So it was when I was 14 years old, around when I was in primary six, I think I was 14 years old then, that I had my first copy, hard copy of a book. That should be, you know, it’s things, Chike and the river, things fall apart. Those were the books, you know, I was reading.
And I came across that in a makeshift library, you know, in a cupboard. I was preserved somewhere within my grandfather’s house. And when I came upon those books, I started picking them.
That was when I started reading. And from reading, I started writing a little until 2010, when I officially picked up 2010.
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Can I meet you sir?
My name is James Eze. I’m a poet, cultural organizer, an indigiene from. Enugu State.
So let’s start with Longlist. I was on my desk writing in Enugu, when I got a phone call from Ugo Chukwu Anadi.
That’s his name. I’m deliberately referencing him here because he was the bringer of good news. It came to me when I was actually at my lowest ebb.
Ugo Chukwu’s call came in and I picked it. Ugo Chukwu writes reviews. He’s also a writer.
So I said, congrats. And I was a little bit surprised. I said, congrats for doing what exactly? He said, your name is on the list.
Haven’t you seen it? I said, what list? He said, the Longlist, the NLNG Longlist. So I screamed. I was elated because I know what it means.
Being on the NLNG Longlist is not just about the fact that you stand a chance of getting to the finals, making the shortlist, and probably winning the prize itself. But it is rather more the fact that your work has gained recognition, that what you produced in absolute solitude has gained the approval of literary authorities because NLNG is a very highly respected company and one that is visionary and caring enough to institute a gesture to the Nigerian writer. You know, there is no other company in Nigeria that has done what NLNG has done for the community of writers in Nigeria for over 20 years.
And this prize has existed without a stain of any kind. So it has earned… It’s a prestigious prize. For your efforts to be even recognized by this prize has given you every right to brag.
You have earned the bragging right as either a poet, a short story writer, or a novelist, or a playwright. Once you have made the NLNG Longlist, it’s a big deal, you know, to your career. It means your efforts have not gone unnoticed.
How do you feel when you made the NLNG longlist?
So that’s why I say, ah, me, my name on the Longlist, and I thanked the bearer of the news and said, look, you have no idea what you have done for me this evening. That, you know, I was quite excited and I was beyond excitement in many cases. That’s what it means to me.
It means recognition, it means approval, it means validation, it means, to a very large extent, even popularity. Nobody can look at me now and say, oh, what have you even done with your life, you know? And when I stand up anywhere and say, I am James Eze, I am a poet, nobody will dispute that. Because for you to have your work judged by a panel of experts and found worthy, you know, has established your authority to declaim your making as a poet.
Thank you. Okay. Longlist is the beginning. Yeah, yeah. With an august beginning. It was, I think, the level of the Longlist.
Yes, it was. Now, what they say, they say, I have separated the men from the boys. Now, on the shortlist, what do you say? Longlist’s assessment was beyond. Yes. Longlist’s assessment was beyond. On the shortlist now.
On the shortlist, I discovered the immensity of God’s grace. Because it takes the grace of almighty God a force higher than us. For somebody like me, I’m not a university teacher, I have not, there are people who are teachers, who are professors of literature that were on the Longlist.
These people have taught poetry for more than 30 years or even more. We were on the Longlist together. But for me to emerge from that Longlist to this stage, the only explanation is that God has got my back.
This one is no more like, oh, you understand what I’m saying? It is not down to my effort alone, it is not down to my being the best poet ever or the most committed poet or the most passionate writer. I think it’s just the grace of God manifesting in a profound way. And I am grateful to God and God alone and counting on Him to make the final outcome bring greater glory to His name.
The prize is what it is. So finally, give it to James. This is it.
After all that has declined, the winner. How is it James doesn’t feel like it? James would feel extremely happy and declare the glory of Almighty God, the immensity of His love for me, the irrevocability of His presence and His passionate attention to an unworthy servant. I am taking it all in a very deep philosophical breath because to be declared a winner of the Nigerian Prize for Literature 2026 places me in a whole new orbit.
My name would have been etched in history as a serious poet who stood up when the time demanded to write poems that woke his compatriots, his fellow Nigerians up and presented not just a wish list of emotions but also made strong suggestions about how we can overcome our challenges together as a people. Poets and walkers in symbol are expected to be visionaries. They are expected to be people who can see beyond today.
And I think I have even demonstrated some measure of that in my body of work so far because the opening poem in my first book of poetry introduced me as the missing lobe of poetry’s colonnade, the fearless chest that absorbs the razor blade. It is the fearless chest that sticks out and takes the axe, takes the blade. And in my current work under discussion, I presented myself as the voice of my people articulating their anger without fear, without qualms, without flinching from the possibilities of, you know, a fight back by anyone who feels uncomfortable with the truths that I am telling.
So that fearlessness began from the introduction I did of myself. And in this current, in this particular volume, Unbinding Now, you also find out that the definitive poem here took that metaphor a little further when I also introduced myself as the poet persona here in this particular collection. I say, Our hopes blaze in a soaring bonfire.
The poet sits in the tongue of the infernal, a human shield against obstinate fate. The poet, I sit on the tongue of the infernal, on the tongue of roaring fire as a shield against my people, taking, again, taking the blames, taking, leading them to battle, making incredible demands on their behalf. Remember in Dispossessed, we are looking at the fearless chest that absorbs the sharp edges of the razor blade.
But here, the poet has now ascended to the tongue of a roaring fire to shield the people. Speak the truth, ask the system for accountability, take responsibility for voicing the discontent amongst the people. You also encounter another poem in this collection where I am the voice of the streets.
The voice of the streets, that is where I now, the poet persona has taken to the streets and is voicing the grievances of the people and demanding answers. The opening line, the opening verse of The Voice of the Streets says, My poetry belongs to the streets. To itinerant traders with broken voices, to tooting horns that shatter our sleep at dawn.
My poetry is the anger of a million feet marching in menacing rhythms to stomp tyranny to silence. You know, so, the poet does not act in a personal capacity. He acts on behalf of the people.
Everybody complains in Nigeria, but not everybody has the gift to put their grievances together like this. So that’s why this particular poet is not ready to go silent. Unbind me now.
Tell us more about your new book?
This book, in summary, it is a book of outrage, protests, you know, a book that forces society to re-examine itself, you know, to calls for reckoning, you know, because when things go wrong, you turn to people who have the gift of interpretation. As is said in the scriptures, there are people who understand, there are people who speak in tongues and there are people who understand tongues, who can interpret those tongues. The poet is supposed to have the uncanny ability to speak in a language that is eternal, a language that survives over time.
Now I will give you a sample. You are the first people, you know, we were interviewed yesterday, but not, you know. I will give you an instance.
This poem, this book, and the accompanying… I want to show you. I swear. On by me, now.
This is the poem responding to music, performed with beat, you know, so that people, so that people, a lot more people can listen to it, so that the message goes far, okay? In the next week now, this song will be uploaded on all platforms, Audiomag, Spotify, all of them, so that in your own house, you can actually listen to it. You don’t have to go online. And you get the message of this poem.
Yeah, if you want, I can send these songs to you if I have your contact. I created this for people to listen to. About my… It’s not for me to say what’s special, no.
That would be like sounding immodest. I just know that I have written a book that aspires to speak for the people. Well, the thing, what I can say that will probably convince you is for you to remember that memory is short, you know? Memory is very, very short.
So we have things to aid us, to make sure we do not forget. This book is a compressed history of modern Nigeria in poetry, in a verse form, so that when you look at what has happened right from the Buhari era to the present era, you look at the reign of terror, you look at the abduction of schoolchildren, you look at the soaring cost of living, you look at the hopelessness, the displacement, the economic alienation of the majority of my Nigerian compatriots by systems that we have failed to fix as a people. After over how many years of independence, we have not been able to create, to build a nation that can provide for the citizens.
If you look at the number of people leaving Nigeria every day, fleeing to other places, built by people who are not as gifted as Nigerians, then, you see, this book will speak to you because truth is eternal. And whether we like it or not, we can glossify it. How come we have Nigerians flourishing, doing well in every part of the world, but we have failed as a people, living together on our home soil? Isn’t that embarrassing enough? So this book interrogates that.
This book does not dwell in the past. Or, you know, dodge or hide behind a finger. This book comes almost confrontational.
It speaks inconvenient truths. And if you love the truth, if you remember your own doubts about Nigeria, your private yearnings for a better country, and you want a book that will remind you that you are valid, that your dreams are valid, then this book aligns with your dreams. So this is what it is about.
It is literature speaking artistic truth. It is literature embracing history and presenting it as something that nobody should overlook. You’re welcome, Lilian
Before you go to that question, You and this pride! It is what brought us here. There’s nothing that brought us here apart from… My brother and I are through. Nothing has brought us here.
So, you know, I don’t know. I don’t know the lack of passion or the money. It’s what it is.
If it comes to your heart, how do you tend to spread it? Thank you. I have always said that literature… If literature gives me money, I’ll put it in the service of literature. I know that I’m not the only one who has the gift of imagination in Nigeria.
I know that there are people who even write better than myself. And there will be many more people coming in the future who will write better than me. So my responsibility is to create platforms, create opportunities for, you know, the people who are coming behind me to also find expression.
And I have been doing that now for a significant part of my life, being part of so many literary initiatives like the International Creative Writing Workshop that Chimamanda Adichie ran for quite a number of years. I curated it when Fidelity Bank was sponsoring it. I also did curate the ones that Helen Habila, the Nigerian novelist who is a lecturer, a professor of literature in George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia.
Aha, you know, so Helen was also a facilitator of the workshop. I have also been a co-founder and co-curator of a poetry festival, the first in Southeast Nigeria, known as Return to Idoto, a poetry festival in honor of Christopher Kibo. You know, this festival has attracted poets from different parts of Nigeria to perform for a period lasting three days.
We hold it biannually. In my own private capacity, I have an initiative known as Under African Skies. Under African Skies holds annual evening of poetry and songs for young poets and writers in Oko, Anambra State.
And then, more intimately, is my musical collective. I have a group of artists, young artists. This gentleman have seen us.
I brought the same group for a media engagement in Lagos, 2022. He was there. These are young people.
I write songs for them, and they turn those songs, sometimes my poems, they set it to song. And that’s how I began. That’s how I started taking interest in music until I began to also perform my own works myself.
So these are existing platforms already, and if I win this prize, I will plow it into it. The music industry is one industry that has defined Nigeria in the past 10 to 15 years, and we have a lot of young singers. The question is, what do they sing? What lyrics do they popularize? Because they don’t have serious thinkers like us.
You know, you find most of these artists, they have gifts, but they sing songs that do not define our people, songs that fall short of history. So imagine me having so much money now to get this talent and pay for their studio sessions and promote their works. You’ll be listening to intensely poetic music, at least if I’m able to bring one good singer into prominence, and my job would have been done.
So there are so many things I can… I’m not seeking for platforms. I already have them. It’s just I don’t have the money to animate these platforms.
Yes. That’s exactly what I’ve been saying. Yes, I said I have platforms.
I have Udala Nation as a platform. Udala Nation is the name of my group of young singers, and we have released songs before together, but we don’t have money to even promote these songs. Remember that poetry and songs are almost the same.
And then I also have Under African Skies, which organizes Anwa Evening of Poetry in Oka and Ambra State, and I am a co-founder and co-curator of Return to Idoto, a poetry festival in honour of Christopher Kibo. You know, and just last year, I was chairman of Things Fall Apart Festival, the first literary festival to last seven days in Southeast Nigeria. So how about I win this prize? I already have these platforms.
I just put more money in these platforms. Here is a song by Udala Queen. Number one. I must hold you close, love you right and treat you nice. Every time I look into your eyes, I see my future. And I think of my love right through this seashell.
I’ve been down this road before. I know the path of this. So darling, won’t you allow me to love you till I die? Allow me to love you till I die. Allow me to love you till I die. Love you till I die. Love you till I die.
Good lies are hard to find. I’ma try to make you mine, keep you satisfied. Oh, one more question.
Yes. Sorry. Now then they provoke me.
You know me. You don’t know me. Okay. Writing this book? No.
How long have I been writing?
I’ve been writing since, you know, like, since I was a kid. But if you talk about serious writing, I think I have been writing effectively now for ten years.
Ten years of, you know, attempting to write, write, stop, write, stop. Sincerely speaking, I have only written seriously, seriously for a period of, from 2020, from 2020 to this moment. You know, that’s when I have paid more attention.
And I have produced two books, this book and the book before it entitled Goosebumps. So now I devote more time to writing poetry. Oh, okay.
Have you been nominated for the NLNG?
Yes, I was on the long list, NLNG long list in 2022 with my debut collection of poems entitled Dispossessed. But you couldn’t make it to the… Couldn’t make it to the short list. And now made it to the short list.
I hope, I hope for the better. I hope the people from Oka will not come with their dance drums when they hear me dance. So you need to come and check your qualities.
No, if, if… You need to come and check your qualities. You just need to, you just need to, you need to go online and sample my songs. I have songs for all seasons.
And these songs… And these songs are all… They are not like, oh, you know, all these vulgar songs that youngsters… These are songs that speak… Sorry? You did what? Oh, okay, yeah. Yeah, okay.
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My name is Ogaga Ifowodo, is a poet and a journalist.
So, you have been in this long list before?
And short list. And short list. This time around, what are the hopes and aspirations? Having made it from the general list, long list, and finally the short list.
Since I’ve been in the running three times, I’m going to hope that the same is going to be true for me. That the third time is a charm. That the literary gods will say the third time is a charm.
And that this year will be mine. That said, I’ve been on the long list, so three times, but on the short list twice. I was on the short list with my fourth book of poems, A Good Morning.
Mourning as mourning the dead. In which I have revisited the tragedy of democracy, the political crisis, our bedeviling Nigeria and Africa as a continent. June 12, Rwanda, the Janjaweed in Sudan, Zimbabwe, Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, on and on.
So, that made it to the short list, but didn’t go all the way. This time, I’m on the short list again, and I’m hoping that I’ll go all the way. Okay.
Looking at here, he’s been shortlisted, but long and short. And this particular year now, with a book, with the title of a book. Anyway, what’s the title of the book? Why Does God Need a Gun? Okay.
What do you think is special in this book now that will make you go, say, this is my year?
What is so special about your new book that has given you that conviction that a gun will be the winner? Every writer has to be supremely sure of herself. When you write, you write in solitude. You grapple with your muse, loneliness.
You’re finding the words, the image, the metaphor to give life to that impulse which you want to give expression to in a poem or in a short story or in a dramatic play, a dramatic piece in a play. So, you have to be supremely confident about your work. Why, I think, well, that’s confidence that I also have.
I also have been endorsed by the judges of the NLNG Prize. Not only to make it from a pool of 223 to the long list of 11, but now to the short list of three. So, that’s what gives me confidence that it is deserving of winning the prize.
That what I did in solitude these past two, three years, judges have found it worthy of being in the last three out of 223. So, that’s what gives me the confidence that it is good enough to win. Okay.
I wonder why this question is asked all the time. Yes, because, yes. Well, first of all, this amount of money will be useful, not only to a writer, to any citizen.
Certainly not Nigeria of today, where the minimum wage is 70,000 Naira and the litre of petrol is 1,300, 1,400 Naira. But on that, writers are not known to be the most materially endowed people. Often, writers and artists, they live in penury.
They are struggling to make ends meet. So, a prize like this is going to solve 1,001 problems for any writer, any artist. Like I said, for anybody, anywhere, anywhere in the world.
But the first thing I would definitely like to do, if and when I do win the prize, is to set up a prize for poetry in my alma mater, Federal Government College, Warwick. Is to set up a prize for poetry in my alma mater, Federal Government College, Warwick. That was where I wrote my first poem.
Federal Government College, Warwick. In those days, we had an annual festival of arts and culture, our own festac. So there would be competition among the four houses of the school for activities ranging from dance, cultural dance, drama, each house was supposed to stage a play, poetry recitation, literary debates among the houses.
One year, in those days, we had ordinary level and A levels. One year, while I was in Form 4, the sixth former at my table in the dining hall just turned to me and said, you have it bent to the arse, not so? And I said, yes. So why don’t you write a poem for our house, Independence House, for the poetry events? I had not before then ever thought of writing, putting two words together by way of a poem.
But then I thought about it and said, why not? So the old adage, it is an ill wind that blows no one any good. Occurred to me, meaning my mind went there. So I literalized it and the poem became the joint first prize winner for Independence House.
Together with a poem by a sixth former, a female. Actually, she happens to be the, I don’t know what they call it, DG or general manager, director, of the Nigerian Downstream and Midstream Regulatory Commission, Mayuwa Mabiaku, as we knew her at FGC Warido’s days. She’s married now, so I think she goes by another marriage name now, but Mayuwa Mabiaku.
We’re required to recite these winning poems before the entire school in the assembly hall, which happens to be the biggest audience. If I recited my poem before, it would have attended big events, including the poetry festival and so on. So I would like to give back, to remember my beginning as a poet by instituting a prize.
Beyond that, maybe I’ll be able to pay my rent a few years in advance. And then recalling what our own compatriot Ben Oakley said when he won the Booker Prize. And he was asked a similar question.
And he said, maybe now I can afford a few more pencils and continue writing. So I will be able to buy a few more pens and more books. And with my rent paid in advance, write some more poetry.
You are recording, right? Why does God need a gun? It started life as creeds and incredulity. I was drawn to this question of what we, as human beings, are capable of believing. Whether in an almighty God who sits in the sky.
Whether in our ancestors who are under the ground. Whether in water worship, water divination. Whether in life, in everything, in animism.
Whether in reincarnation, how we live our lives now, how we reincarnate, and so on. I was interested in that. Creeds.
And what can be credulous and incredulous. What can even be ridiculous in them. And when in the light of our contemporary experience in Nigeria, and in the whole world actually, the religious fundamentalism, the fanaticism that has taken over the world, where someone who believes in a particular way of apprehending the supreme being, the transcendental, thinks that if you don’t believe in that same way, then you lose your right to humanity, you lose your right to freedom, to equality, the equality of being with him or her.
Mostly him, of course, the man. That notion that my belief is the only one, yours is nothing, therefore you must die, therefore you must subscribe to mine or you die. That has seized my imagination for quite a while.
When I was 17, I asked my father, who created sin? And of course, as a good disciple of Jesus, like he even styled himself, even though he was a trained scientist, attended Fura Bay College, the oldest university college in West Africa, as you know, was a born-again, very devoted Christian, who called himself a disciple of Jesus. Who created sin? I was 17. I was in a secondary school.
They said you can’t question God. That has ever left me the need to question our beliefs, religious beliefs, and what they mean for the way we relate to the other, and the way we treat the other, and what we think makes someone deserving to be on the same earth. More than that is that the Abrahamic religions all say that an almighty God molded us out of mere clay, and until he breathed his essence into us, we were in that clay.
We were not living beings, and that we were all created equal before him. Yet, some being molded out of clay thinks that they are more powerful than God, and therefore have to be God’s guardians. They have to protect him from being blasphemed, from being worshipped in a way that they themselves do not approve of.
And because of that, they were born, and raped, and kidnapped, and take people into the forest, children, women, doesn’t matter. So that was the primary preoccupation. What do our beliefs, religious beliefs, mean? How can you believe in a way to such an extent that you think the other does not deserve his or her humanity? That is the reason for it.
The book does not begin like what I said under this title, but when I was revising for publication, after several drafts, after rewriting, and now preparing for publication, I re-read that section because the spine of the book is a sequence of 26 poems at the beginning, which are a tribute to Leah Sharibu, who, as you know, is a Tapuji girl who refused to renounce her faith, her Christian faith, in order to be released. And we’ve not heard from her ever since 2018, but the girls who renounced for the purpose of just gaining their freedom gave us testimony of the fact that she did not renounce. That’s why she was not released.
And those who kidnapped her, who captured her, threatened that they would make her a slave and she would not be free, she would be in the forest forever. So she’s a martyr for freedom of belief. At one point, because the whole plan of the fanatics, of the terrorists, is to deny us our equal humanity, our equal citizenship, our subjectivity, and deny us freedom.
Therefore, especially of the girl child, I don’t know the particular aversion, the hate that these fanatics have for the girl child, for the woman. It’s astonishing. So my plan here is to make her speak where they want her to be absent, to be a non-being, to restore her humanity, her agency, her voice.
And doing so in a book. Boko Haram means book is forbidden. To actually give an expression of the very thing, the symbol of the thing that they hate.
At one point she asks her captors, your mission is to save God, and yet you say God is great? Then you are greater than God. And then in that section, there’s actually a section in the poem entitled, Why Does Your God Need A Gun? She asks them, why does your God need a gun? Is breaking hearts and hymens heaven’s harvest? So this is, in general, the organizing principle, the vision of the book. But it’s not only Nigeria.
Because this terrorism we’re talking about is a global phenomenon, as you know. So there are poems on Gaza, which again is another hotbed of religious intolerance, of fanaticism, and doing this in the name of God. The idea that God created all of us.
Who is capable of making land by saying, let there be more land. Let this land flow with milk and honey. Decides to tell some of his children, go and take over the land of my other children there, that I promised it to you.
And you have to say, how can that be God? If the problem was that these children, the land of which they currently are, is not filled with milk and honey, he could very well say, let your land flow with milk and honey. And it would flow with milk and honey. They don’t have to go and take over the land filled with milk and honey, already belonging to some of his other children.
So all these are part of the thought. So there are poems on Gaza. There’s a poem for Salman Rushdie, who, Ayatollah Khomeini, that was 1988 or 1989, pronounced a fatwa on for writing a book.
That simply makes us want to challenge some of those received notions of a revealed religion. That God revealed himself to you inherently, and you transcribed it without any error, without distorting anything. And then through all the years of translations, and through servants, and those who are rulers, and so on, nothing has gone wrong.
That work remains pure right from the beginning. But he didn’t reveal it to us, he revealed it to you. And it’s always revealed to them, alone, in secret.
So the very first point that begins the book actually says, what’s your creed? Proclaim it. Now, there are adherents waiting for you. Zealous for the true God, surrender the truth revealed to you in secret.
So it’s always revealed to them alone, in secret, and then impose on us, and if we don’t believe it, then we don’t have a right to exist as they do. That is the idea behind the question, why does God, who is almighty, all-powerful, need a gun? That’s what I’m going to be talking about. First of all, you know, books never tend to go with questions, as question marks.
I don’t know if you’ve seen any book whose title is a question mark. So it has a question mark, that’s a question. So it has this question, because I want also to confront this question, why would God, who is the embodiment of the most powerful, need a gun? Still need a gun.
Sir, how long have you been writing, sir?
Like I said, from when I was in secondary school, my fourth year in secondary school. Fourth year, second year, I was 15, 16. 15, 16, my fourth year, Federal Government College, Oregon.
And I’ve never stopped writing. And poetry has been my only medium other than newspaper articles, and like I said, I have a current work of non-fiction, and I’m also trying to finish a work of fiction. But this is, in creative writing, it’s only poetry.
Okay, I published a short story in a magazine in the U.S. before, but this is really my main, the main genre in which I write poetry. You said at the age of 16, right? Yeah, 15, I would like to say 16, because I was in Form 4. Okay, this NLG project, that’s been there at least four years, what can you say about it? NLNG has done a massive thing for Nigerian and African literature. First of all, now you can, every year, the number of entries for each of the categories has increased, which means it has spurred Nigerians to write more.
And more than that, has made them pay more attention to the craft of writing, and then to the production to inspire publishers to also devote more attention to publishing quality books that can compete with any book anywhere in the world. Merely looking at this collection now from Masube, you can tell that it can compete with any book, you know, anywhere in the world, at the sheer level of physical production. But more than that is that it has spurred, inspired many Nigerians to take literature more seriously and to take writing more seriously.
I applaud them. I want them to not rest on their oars, to seek even more ways of guarding the integrity of the prize by the choice of judges they appoint to judge the prize every year. Some have suggested that given how massive, how big the prize is, maybe there’s room also for what you might call a runner-up prize.
So that even if the winner is going to take away the big prize of $100,000, it shouldn’t be too much for NLNG to give, whether it is $10,000, at least for the runners-up. So that suggestion has come, but I think the main thing, which is their intervention by way of instituting a prestigious prize for Nigerian literature, has done a great service to African literature as a whole, and black writing in general. Well, I don’t know.
I think every writer comes with his or her own voice. So there’s what you say, even in the… Let’s take the generation of Achebe, Shoinka, Okibo, and J.P. Clarke, and you can even add Gabriel Okara, you know, for instance, who was seen as the first big generation of Nigerian writers. You can tell that their voices differ.
When you read Achebe, the style you will see is Achebean. And if you read Shoinka, the same thing, that this is Shoinka. And you can’t mistake Shoinka for Clarke.
In fact, one of the staples of questions in exams, WAEC and even secondary school exams, will be to compare and contrast Shoinka’s Abiku and J.P. Clarke’s Abiku. They both work on the same phenomenon. The Obanje that Igbo would call it.
You know, Abiku is born and dies, a changeling. But the two are different in the way they handle that same subject. They’re the same thing.
Now, these three books that are on the short list now, have the distinguished characteristic of all being about Nigeria, being fully engaged with the contemporary problems of Nigeria. But they also do so from different visions, express different visions, different aesthetic choices, and different locutionary stances. So that’s what distinguishes.
Each writer is different. Each writer comes with a voice. Each writer comes with a specific manner, aesthetics.
