…NLNG Nigeria Prize for Literature 2026, Three Poets, Three Books, Three Visions of Nigeria
For Tares Oburumu, James Eze and Ogaga Ifowodo, being shortlisted for the 2026 Nigeria Prize for Literature is the culmination of years of writing, reflection and engagement with Nigeria’s complicated history and present realities.
The three poets are in contention for this year’s prize, sponsored by Nigeria LNG Limited (NLNG), with their works offering sharply different perspectives on the country, its history, its people and its unresolved questions.
Oburumu’s *Flora’s Love Colony* explores the history behind Nigeria’s name and the colonial experience that shaped the country. Eze’s *Unbinding Now* confronts contemporary Nigeria through poems of protest, anger, memory and accountability. Ifowodo’s *Why Does God Need a Gun?* adds another distinctive voice to a shortlist that places poetry firmly at the centre of the national conversation.
In separate interviews ahead of the announcement of the winner, the poets spoke about their books, their creative journeys, the significance of the NLNG recognition and what poetry means to them.
*Tares Oburumu: From a village classroom to the NLNG shortlist*
Oburumu, from Yenagoa, is a poet, essayist and playwright. He graduated from the University of Benin in 2010, where he studied philosophy and religion.
His literary journey has included publications in journals and magazines, both online and in print. He has also been a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee and says he has mentored more than 1,000 young Nigerian poets, with seven poetry chapbooks to his name.
But his journey into literature did not begin in an environment rich with books.
He said he grew up in a village where there was no nursery school, no school library and limited access to books.
“We start from primary one. And even at that, we have no access to books. There’s no school library,” he said.
“Most of the time, we sit on the floor, on the mud floor, to have our classes.”
It was not until he was about 14, when he was in primary six, that he encountered his first hard copies of books.
Among them were Chinua Achebe’s *Things Fall Apart* and *Chike and the River*.
He found them in a makeshift library in a cupboard at his grandfather’s house.
“When I came upon those books, I started picking them,” he said. “That was when I started reading. And from reading, I started writing a little.”
His serious writing, he said, began after university.
The road to the NLNG shortlist was therefore built over years of reading, writing, publishing and mentoring.
*‘I was shocked’*
Oburumu said he had long been familiar with the Nigeria Prize for Literature and the writers whose names had appeared on its longlists and shortlists over the years.
“It’s a year-by-year thing, yearly thing for drama, for poetry. And we have aspirations towards these directions as well,” he said.
“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 longlist.”
But when his own name appeared, the excitement was accompanied by uncertainty.
Looking at the other writers on the longlist, he wondered whether his work could make it to the next stage.
“When I saw my name on the first list, I was a little bit skeptical,” he said.
He recalled seeing writers who were assistant professors, professors and authors with considerably more books and academic qualifications.
“When you see your name on that list, it is daunting,” he said. “You’re kind of skeptical if they’re going to make you through to the shortlist.”
When his name eventually appeared on the shortlist, his reaction was simple.
“I was shocked,” he said. “And at the same time, I was excited.”
*Flora’s Love Colony*
At the heart of Oburumu’s shortlisted work is a historical question that he believes many Nigerians have never seriously considered: how Nigeria got its name.
The title, *Flora’s Love Colony*, is connected to Flora Shaw, the British journalist who coined the name “Nigeria” and later became the wife of Frederick Lugard.
Oburumu said his interest began when he came across an article written by Shaw.
He began thinking about the country’s name, its colonial origins and the circumstances surrounding the amalgamation that created modern Nigeria.
“A lot of Nigerians, they don’t know how the name Nigeria came about,” he said.
His questions extended beyond the name itself.
He wondered why Nigeria retained its colonial name after independence while other African countries changed theirs.
He cited Dahomey, which became Benin Republic, and Gold Coast, which became Ghana.
“When the name was given, there was no consultation with the people,” he said.
“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?”
For Oburumu, the issue is not simply historical curiosity. It is about how Nigerians understand their own country.
He linked the subject to the importance of teaching history and allowing young Nigerians to understand how their country came into existence.
“I found out that a lot of people don’t know how Nigeria came about,” he said.
“That is the whole thing about *Flora’s Love Colony*.”
*A book, a library and a dream*
If Oburumu wins the prize, the money would have a purpose beyond personal celebration.
He has an unfinished project to establish a library for secondary-school students in his village in Delta State.
The library, he said, is one of the reasons the possibility of winning the prize means so much to him.
“I was excited because I think that dream is about to be fulfilled,” he said.
“So if I’m pronounced winner, I think it will do a lot of good to the children.”
Asked what else he would do with the prize money, he returned to the same priority.
“For now, I don’t know,” he said. “But the most pronounced idea in my head is how to finish my project and then the rest will follow.”
‘ *Keep writing’*
For writers who did not make the longlist or shortlist, Oburumu’s message is uncomplicated.
Keep writing.
“Writing is about being consistent,” he said.
“You fail, you get up, you write. You fail, you get up, you write. Consistency wins. And when consistency wins, you win equally.”
He urged writers not to focus exclusively on the NLNG prize.
“There are a lot of prizes out there,” he said.
“Consistency is all in the game. If you are not consistent, if you give up, you don’t know the next big thing that awaits you.”
His advice was simple: “Keep writing, keep influencing life, keep touching lives, keep dreaming.”
*James Eze: ‘It means recognition’*
For James Eze, the news of his longlisting came while he was at his desk in Enugu.
A telephone call from fellow writer and reviewer Ugo Chukwu Anadi brought the news.
Anadi congratulated him.
Eze was confused.
“Congrats for doing what exactly?” he asked.
His friend told him his name was on the NLNG longlist.
Eze screamed.
He knew what it meant.
“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,” he said.
“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.”
For Eze, the recognition carries particular significance because of the standing of the prize and NLNG’s long-running support for Nigerian writers.
“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,” he said.
The longlist, he said, gives a writer what he called “the bragging right”.
“Once you have made the NLNG longlist, it’s a big deal to your career,” he said.
“It means your efforts have not gone unnoticed.”
*From the longlist to the shortlist*
Making the shortlist produced a different reaction.
Eze said the experience made him reflect on the writers he had competed alongside, including university lecturers and professors who had spent decades teaching literature.
For him, the explanation was not simply talent or professional experience.
“I discovered the immensity of God’s grace,” he said.
“It takes the grace of Almighty God, a force higher than us.”
He said reaching the shortlist was not, in his view, simply about being the most accomplished poet.
“It is not down to my effort alone,” he said. “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.”
*Unbinding Now*
Eze’s shortlisted collection, *Unbinding Now*, is rooted firmly in the realities of contemporary Nigeria.
He describes it as a book of outrage and protest, one that forces society to examine itself and calls for reckoning.
“The book is a compressed history of modern Nigeria in poetry, in a verse form,” he said.
The collection addresses issues ranging from insecurity and the abduction of schoolchildren to the soaring cost of living, displacement and economic alienation.
For Eze, poetry can serve as a record against forgetting.
“Memory is very, very short,” he said.
“So we have things to aid us, to make sure we do not forget.”
*The poet as the voice of the people*
One of the central ideas in *Unbinding Now* is the poet’s responsibility to articulate what ordinary people feel but may not always be able to express.
Eze described the poet as someone who interprets the language of society.
“Everybody complains in Nigeria, but not everybody has the gift to put their grievances together like this,” he said.
In *The Voice of the Streets*, he places the poet among ordinary Nigerians.
“My poetry belongs to the streets,” he said, explaining the poem.
It speaks to itinerant traders, the sounds of traffic and the anger of people demanding answers.
The poet, in Eze’s conception, does not speak merely as an individual.
“He acts on behalf of the people,” he said.
That responsibility is also reflected in the imagery running through the collection.
Eze describes the poet as a fearless chest willing to absorb the blows of society’s problems and, later, as someone sitting on “the tongue of a roaring fire” as a shield for the people.
The imagery, he said, reflects his belief that the poet must speak truth, demand accountability and give voice to public discontent.
*A book that speaks uncomfortable truths*
Eze said *Unbinding Now* does not hide from Nigeria’s difficult realities.
It looks at what he described as the reign of terror, school abductions, economic hardship, displacement and the growing number of Nigerians leaving the country.
The book also asks why Nigerians who thrive in other parts of the world often find it difficult to build the same level of prosperity at home.
“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?” he asked.
For Eze, the question is difficult but necessary.
The collection, he said, “speaks inconvenient truths”.
It is not designed simply to comfort readers.
Instead, it challenges them to look at the country and ask difficult questions about what has gone wrong and what can still be repaired.
The poems have also moved beyond the printed page.
Eze said some have been adapted into music, allowing the work to reach audiences who may not ordinarily read poetry.
The songs are expected to be distributed across digital music platforms.
For Eze, the purpose remains the same: to make the message travel further.
Ogaga Ifowodo: *Why Does God Need a Gun?*
The third shortlisted poet is Ogaga Ifowodo, whose new collection is titled *Why Does God Need a Gun?*
The title itself introduces a provocative question and adds another dimension to a shortlist shaped by history, identity, protest and the search for meaning in contemporary Nigeria.
Ifowodo’s inclusion alongside Oburumu and Eze gives this year’s poetry shortlist three distinctly different literary approaches: a reconsideration of Nigeria’s colonial naming and historical memory in *Flora’s Love Colony*; a confrontation with contemporary social realities in Eze’s *Unbinding Now*; and the philosophical and provocative question embedded in Ifowodo’s *Why Does God Need a Gun?*
Together, the three books demonstrate the breadth of contemporary Nigerian poetry and its continuing engagement with the country’s history, identity, struggles and aspirations.
The announcement of the winner will determine who takes the 2026 Nigeria Prize for Literature.
But the conversations generated by the three shortlisted collections are already larger than the competition itself.
They ask questions about where Nigeria came from, what it has become and what its writers can do with the truths they see around them.
For Oburumu, the answer begins with persistence.
For Eze, it lies in giving language to the people.
And for Ifowodo, even the title of his book leaves readers with a question that demands to be confronted:
*Why Does God Need a Gun?*
