When Tares Oburumu first saw his name on the longlist for the 2026 Nigeria Prize for Literature, excitement was tempered by doubt.
He had looked at the other names and seen professors, academics and writers with more books and higher qualifications. For a poet who began reading seriously at 14 in a village with no library, the prospect of making the final three seemed distant.
Then his name appeared on the shortlist.
“I was shocked,” Oburumu said. “At the same time, I was excited.”
For James Eze, the news came through an unexpected telephone call from fellow writer and reviewer Ugo Chukwu Anadi. Eze was at his desk in Enugu when Anadi congratulated him.
“Congrats for doing what exactly?” Eze recalled asking.
His friend told him his name was on the NLNG longlist.
“I screamed,” he said.
The two poets, alongside Ogaga Ifowodo, are competing for this year’s Nigeria Prize for Literature in poetry, sponsored by Nigeria LNG Limited (NLNG). Their shortlisted books take very different routes into the Nigerian experience: Oburumu’s *Flora’s Love Colony* revisits the origins of the country’s name; Eze’s *Unbinding Now* confronts the anxieties of contemporary Nigeria; while Ifowodo’s collection, *Why Does God Need a Gun?*, carries a title that poses a question of its own.
Ahead of the announcement of the winner, the poets spoke about their books, their journeys and what the recognition means to them.
*From a village floor to the literary shortlist*
Oburumu, a poet, essayist and playwright from Yenagoa, studied philosophy and religion at the University of Benin, graduating in 2010.
He has published in journals and magazines, produced seven poetry chapbooks and been a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee. He also says he has mentored more than 1,000 young Nigerian poets.
But his literary education started in circumstances far removed from the world of literary prizes.
He grew up in a village without a school library. Pupils often sat on mud floors, and books were difficult to find.
At about 14, while in primary six, he discovered copies of Chinua Achebe’s *Things Fall Apart* and *Chike and the River* in a makeshift library in 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 came after university.
Years later, seeing his name on the NLNG longlist brought a mixture of excitement and apprehension.
“When you see your name on that list, it is daunting,” he said.
Making the shortlist changed the emotion.
“I was shocked,” he said. “And at the same time, I was excited.”
*Flora’s Love Colony*: Who named Nigeria?
Oburumu’s shortlisted collection grew from a question about something Nigerians encounter every day but may rarely stop to examine: the name of their country.
His interest was sparked by an article by Flora Shaw, the British journalist who coined the name “Nigeria” and later married Frederick Lugard.
The discovery led him into the history of colonial Nigeria, the 1914 amalgamation and the circumstances in which the name survived into independence.
“A lot of Nigerians, they don’t know how the name Nigeria came about,” he said.
That prompted another question: why did Nigeria retain its colonial name when other African countries abandoned theirs?
“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?”
For Oburumu, the issue is bigger than nomenclature. It is about historical memory and whether Nigerians understand the forces that shaped the country they inherited.
He said the book examines Nigeria from the pre-colonial period through colonial rule, the Biafra War and the post-colonial era.
“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, I think you should pick up the book,” he said.
He leaves the final interpretation to readers.
“That is left for the readers to find out,” he said when asked what makes the book unique.
*A prize, and a library*
For Oburumu, the significance of the prize extends beyond literary recognition.
He has an unfinished project to establish a library for secondary-school students in his village in Delta State.
Winning the prize, he said, could help bring that dream to life.
“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.”
His advice to writers who did not make the shortlist comes from experience.
“Writing is about being consistent,” he said. “You fail, you get up, you write. You fail, you get up, you write. Consistency wins.”
He urged writers to keep submitting their work rather than measuring their careers by one competition.
“Keep writing, keep influencing life, keep touching lives, keep dreaming.”
*James Eze: Recognition after solitude*
For Eze, the longlist was significant because it gave public recognition to work created largely in private.
“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.”
He regards the NLNG prize as an important institution in Nigerian literature and believes being recognised by it represents a significant career milestone.
“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.”
Moving from the longlist to the final three brought a deeper reflection.
Eze noted that the longlist included academics and professors who had spent decades teaching literature and poetry.
“I discovered the immensity of God’s grace,” he said.
“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.”
*Unbinding Now*: ‘A compressed history of modern Nigeria’
Eze’s *Unbinding Now* is rooted in the country’s contemporary experience.
He describes it as a book of outrage and protest that asks society to examine itself and confront its failures.
“The book is a compressed history of modern Nigeria in poetry,” he said.
The collection addresses insecurity, the abduction of schoolchildren, rising living costs, displacement and economic alienation.
But beneath those subjects is another concern: memory.
“Memory is very, very short,” Eze said. “So we have things to aid us, to make sure we do not forget.”
For him, the poet is not merely an observer. The poet can become an interpreter of public frustration.
“Everybody complains in Nigeria, but not everybody has the gift to put their grievances together like this,” he said.
That responsibility is evident in *The Voice of the Streets*, one of the poems in the collection.
“My poetry belongs to the streets,” Eze said.
The poem places the poet among ordinary Nigerians – traders, workers and citizens whose frustrations often remain unspoken or unheard.
‘It speaks inconvenient truths’
Eze said *Unbinding Now* does not attempt to make contemporary Nigeria comfortable for the reader.
It confronts insecurity, economic hardship and displacement, while asking why Nigerians who flourish abroad can struggle to reproduce similar success 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.
That question runs through the collection.
“This book comes almost confrontational,” he said. “It speaks inconvenient truths.”
Some of the poems are also being adapted into music, an effort to take the work beyond conventional literary audiences.
The aim, he said, is to make the message travel further.
Ogaga Ifowodo: *Why Does God Need a Gun?*
The third shortlisted poet, Ogaga Ifowodo, enters the competition with *Why Does God Need a Gun?*
The title alone places a provocative question at the centre of the collection.
Alongside Oburumu’s historical inquiry in *Flora’s Love Colony* and Eze’s contemporary reckoning in *Unbinding Now*, Ifowodo’s title adds another layer to a shortlist already preoccupied with questions of Nigeria, its people and the forces that have shaped their lives.
Together, the three books reflect the range of contemporary Nigerian poetry: one looking back to understand how the country was formed, another confronting the realities of the present, and a third posing a question that invites reflection.
For Oburumu, the journey from a village where books were scarce to the national literary shortlist is a story of persistence.
For Eze, the recognition affirms years of writing in solitude.
And for Ifowodo, the question embedded in the title of his collection remains deliberately open.
As the three poets await the announcement of the 2026 winner, their books have already done what serious poetry often does best: they have given Nigerians new ways to ask old questions – about history, power, identity, memory and the country they call home.
