NLNG: There is no winner for premier literary prize

[Sola Osofisan]

By Akintayo Abodunrin

Out of 161 entries, no winner emerged for the 2009 NLNG Literature Prize at the Grand Awards Night held on Saturday evening in Abuja.

There were gasps of shock and surprise from people inside the Congress Hall of the Transcorp Hilton Hotel, venue of the ceremony, as Ayo Banjo, spokesperson for the panel of judges for the literature prize, declared that none of the works merits the award.

Nine works of poetry had earlier been announced for the prize. ‘Litany’ by Omo Uwaifo, ‘Love Apart’ by Hyginus Ekwuazi, ‘Songs of Odamolugbe’ by Ademola Dasylva, ‘Eaters of the Living’ by Musa Idris Okpanachi and ‘From a Poem to its Creator’ by Diego Okenyodo were some of the nominated works.

The others were Nengi Ilagha’s ‘January Gestures’, G’Ebinyo Ogbowei’s ‘Song of a Dying River’, Ahmed Maiwada’s ‘Fossils’ and ‘A Memory of Rivers’ by Lindsay Barrett.

The judges’ verdict was that none of the works, despite the fact that three of them had previously won poetry prizes, was good enough to be awarded the prize.

This is the second time the Literature Prize would not be awarded. During the inaugural edition of the prize which incidentally held in Abuja in 2004, the judges decided against awarding the prize because of the poor quality of the three shortlisted works they said arose from self-publishing.

‘Condolences,’ by Bina Nengi-Ilagha, ‘Fattening House,’ by Omo Uwaifo and ‘House of Symbols,’ by Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo, were the works shortlisted then.

The common man as star

It wasn’t a total loss for literature, however, as Chima Ibeneche, Managing Director, the NLNG, stated that the prize money of $50,000 will be given to the Nigerian Academy of Letters to develop literature in Nigeria. He said the organisers are committed to maintaining absolute standards for the award and would thus abide with the decision of the judges.

It was a different case for the Science Prize as Andrew Jonathan Nok, a biochemistry teacher at the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, got the prize for his works on trypanosome (sleeping sickness) parasites.

Earlier, Mr. Ibeneche reiterated the objective of the prizes. He said the NLNG “promote science and literature to give others the same opportunity you gave us; to give writers and scientists a shot at success; to give writers and scientists who have more or less operated at the margins of our society, the pleasure to sit with full merit amongst the business and political elite and be able to spread their fragrance of joy and wisdom in this struggling nation of ours”.

He added: “I have yet another reason for this big party. To have an event where politicians are spectators, and the ordinary person, the star!”

You are failures

In an extemporaneous keynote he delivered, sitting obviously because of old age, (he was assisted to the stage by an aide and an official of the NLNG), Emeka Odimegwu Ojukwu, former Biafran leader and chairman of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), underscored the importance of cooperation and unity. He commended the cooperation between the NLNG and Nigeria which he noted is yielding positive dividends for the country. He noted that although two owners emerge from cooperation, the venture remains the property of the owner. Mr. Ojukwu added that partnering with another person doesn’t change one’s status as the owner but pointed out that, “Whatever you do, the ultimate owner is God”.

Mr. Ojukwu also alluded to the crisis in the country’s educational sector. “Don’t ever allow our educational institutions to drop behind. You can’t tell me you love Nigeria when the universities are shut down for months. My friends are ministers but I say to you, you failed on this one,” he said, adding that a good Nigerian is an educated Nigerian.

“He knows the country, its history and what links its people together. Open the door (of your brain) wide and let knowledge fill it”.

On unity, Ojukwu said: “Ethnic jingoism is a thing of the past. We are Nigerians. Nothing more. Work hard, be true to your neighbour.”

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[Sola Osofisan]

Time to dismantle this sham literature prize

By Molara Wood

Chima Ibeneche, managing director of the Nigeria Liquified Natural Gas (NLNG) company, should fire his speech writer. If perchance he wrote the speech he delivered at the NLNG Literature Prize Award night himself, then he has passed a vote of no confidence on himself. His speech at the fiasco of October 10 was shot through with infelicities. Before the night was over, he promised, they would be crowning "the new kings and queens of Nigerian Literature."

Anyone following the lacklustre build-up to the night would have questioned: queens? There was not one woman on the shortlist of writers to be honoured or - given what transpired - dishonoured, by the NLNG. For weeks, the literati stomached, rather too easily, a shortlist made up entirely of males; this, in a writing milieu in which women are doing great things. In an act of latent misogyny, the NLNG saw nothing wrong in effectively saying the best poets in Nigeria are men. No one raised any dust, which is symptomatic of the easy pass that has been given to this prize so far. $50,000 cash prize is worth any lapses in the administration of the prize, it seems.

Ibeneche set out the kind of people due for recognition by his company. "We have... passed the stage of having just a handful of men and women define this country," he declared. Have we? A look at newspaper adverts proclaiming the NLNG's grand award night in celebration of literature, is instructive. One listed former Nigerian head of state, Yakubu Gowon as chair of the award gala; special guests of honour were former military ‘president' Ibrahim Babangida and Shehu Shagari of the second republic. Minister of Information, Dora Akunyili, completed the list.

A charade

No mention of the nine shortlisted writers, the ‘stars' for whom the whole charade was being organised. There was a collage of images from previous award nights; weighted heavily in favour of politicians. Also in the collage, is Ibeneche and his wife, Ugo, who has now sung at the NLNG gala two years in a row. And what's with this obsession with politicians by the organisers of a literary prize? The NLNG's insistence, year on year, to make politicians the unworthy beneficiaries of a vanity gravy train, has long been a sore point for writers. The decision to make Babangida (a grotesque pillager of the Nigerian psyche, who orchestrated the scourge of anti-intellectualism from which the country has not recovered) a keynote speaker in 2007, was highly controversial. Babangida it was after all, who dispatched Mamman Vatsa to an early grave, the latter a beloved soldier-poet.

Impervious to criticism

NLNG compounds the insult by inviting the dictator again in 2009. Is this the action of an organisation that has the tiniest jot of respect for writers?

Who ever heard of politicians presiding over a literature prize? Imagine Britain's Margaret Thatcher, delivering a keynote speech for the Booker Prize, and you would have a sense of the idiocy. Another advert announced that Biafran leader, Odumegwu Ojukwu, would give the 2009 keynote speech - such that the gala night began to take on the air of a vacuous national reconstruction exercise. And who assigned to the NLNG this role of a one-night only cosmetic exercise for the nation? Is it not enough that the gas company already reaps the benefits of million dollars' worth of image laundering through its insincere literature prize?

And what is the dividend of a literary prize (NLNG's petty cash, really) dispensed by an energy company hard at work in the Niger Delta? It is that you buy the silence of the class of society most likely to criticise you. Let us come out and say it: the NLNG's Literature prize is hush money. Let the NLNG acknowledge it and let the writers acknowledge it - and let's move on.

Chima Ibeneche says his gala night is where "writers... previously unsung... achieve recognition and success despite our collective preference to recognise only power and money." But the NLNG, by recognising only the Babangidas of this world, have shown that they only recognise power and money. Why have former rulers lord over the award? They are not particularly renowned for their love of literature or reading. As for Dora Akunyili, her talent these days seems to be for the ‘foot-in-mouth' disease, as she demonstrated again on October 10.

Yet, Ibeneche would have us believe that his gala privileges only the "ordinary man" - the writers. That he classes writers - more often than not members of the intellectual elite - as "ordinary", shows that Ibeneche does not know his subject. Whilst writers readily identify with the masses, they are far from ordinary. Why should a writer consider it a "pleasure to sit with full merit amongst the business and political elite?" Let Ibeneche know, that writers are stars and do not need his validation. The shame is the NLNG's for failing to see this.

No commitment

In a Freudian slip, Ibeneche said he hopes to give winners "at least temporary fame". Temporary? Where is the commitment to the future of the writer and literature in general? A prize of this stature, if properly organised, should transform the winner's life and art permanently. But what, pray, has Kaine Agary done with the 2008 prize, other than being dollar-rich, at least temporarily? Ibeneche's grand condescension really takes the cake. All this, while his wife jumps on the coat-tails of the sham literature prize to musical relevance. For what would Ugo Ibeneche - she with no album, no music career - be doing performing at the NLNG award if she were not the boss's wife?

It has been suggested that a science company was bound to mismanage this prize, conforming to the trait of those to whom literature is a foreign country. That perhaps, is where the literature committee comes in. Speaking on behalf of the committee, Professor Ayo Banjo defended the administration of the prize, which excludes Nigerian writers based abroad. He questioned the supposed dependence of "exile literature" on memory and imagination. The judges were seeking poetry that "reaches beyond a private quest for meaning," he informed. The "presence of introspection" did not also sit well with him. As a professor of English, Banjo should be embarrassed to go on record with such poppycock.

Here are some facts: writing is nothing if not a personal quest for meaning; and poetry is the most private of the literary genres. And as any writer knows, fiction and poetry are acts of the imagination, exertions of memory - so what is Ayo Banjo talking about?

Meanwhile, the ‘stars' of the award gala, the short-listed writers, were not even invited! So, who on earth was the NLNG celebrating? To cap the insult, the judges (who, by the way, are secret; where is the transparency, the accountability?) decided that none of the nine writers deserved the award. The $50,000 prize will go to a hitherto obscure body known as the Nigerian Academy of Letters (NAL). Ayo Banjo is a fellow of NAL. No wonder some are suggesting that the committee and the faceless judges awarded the cash to themselves.

Why this murkiness, always, even in literature? Why can't we in Nigeria attempt to do things right for once? Why can't people attempt to be decent, to be seen to tow the honourable path? The 2009 NLNG Prize for Literature is a disgrace. Professor Ayo Banjo's position is untenable and he should resign from the committee, along with others found to be members of NAL. Conscientious members of the committee should leave this disreputable arrangement with the NLNG.

As for the prize, it is a shambolic endeavour that has lost all credibility and should be dismantled. Writer Denja Abdullahi walked out after Ayo Banjo's bombshell. The Nigerian writers' body should follow suit and boycott the prize as presently constituted. It is time for effective non-cooperation. $50,000 is too cheap a price for our dignity. I am a writer and I am saying this now: I will never enter a work of mine for the NLNG Prize - may the future hold me to it. There are others like me, and our numbers are growing.

In the final analysis, Odumegwu Ojukwu was the only one that attempted to be decent on the night. "What are we doing here?" he repeatedly asked. Good question.

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[Sola Osofisan]

A Prize for Dunces?

By Amatoritsero Ede

Bad writing proliferates anywhere and everywhere in the world - in Nigeria, Canada or Cancun. This is why a battery of editors, proofreaders and critics midwife a book. It is the reason there are creative writing schools, and workshops - as useless as those are if the prospective writer has no original talent. That is the logic for the institution of prizes - to separate the grain from the chaff and celebrate excellence. This is why the intention of the NLNG prize mystifies and is suspicious. Its administrators seem hell-bent on doing the opposite - laud mediocrity.

No, I am not saying - to borrow that apt description by Odia Ofeimun straight out of the pages of oil capitalism - that the "onshore" Nigerian writer is mediocre. The NLNG defines them as such by its very practices and lack of trust in their abilities - especially when it banned the "offshore" writer. The award-giving institution seems to have made up its mind to install a Flecknoe - John Dryden's king of dunces in the satiric Augustan poem, "Mac flecknoe" - over the new-age dunce writer. The fury and haste with which books are churned out on the eve of the award is simply embarrassing and verifies that.

Dryden was satirising contemporary hack writers, specifically Thomas Shadwell, the playwright, for his mediocrity. In that brilliant poem Flecknoe, the reigning king of dunces, contemplates his mortality and seeks a successor. Here is Dryden on Flecknoe's ruminations:


This aged prince now flourishing in peace,

And blest with issue of a large increase,

Worn out with business, did at length debate,

To settle the succession of the state,

And pondering, which of all his sons were fit

To reign and wage immortal wars with wit,

Cried it is resolved (for Nature pleads, that he

Should only rule, who most resembles me,)

Shad alone my perfect image bears,

Mature in dullness from his tender years;

Shad alone of all my sons is he

Who stands confirmed in full stupidity;

The rest to some faint meaning make pretence,

But Shad never deviates into sense;

Some beams of wit on other souls may fall,

Strike through, and make a lucid interval;

But Shad's genuine night admits no ray ...


The dunce, Nigeria, has become a King Flecknoe over ‘Nigerian' rather than ‘Nigerian' literature. If we look at the texts the country has written since its independence, we know it is a failed writer, "confirmed in full stupidity" as Dryden says above. The invisible forces playing proxy to this king of dunces (judges, administrators, shady officials in a hurry) scour the land in search of successors to our usual national mediocrity. Our "genuine night" right from independence has decided to "admit no rays." This is a country that has taken itself out of all global competitions, literary and otherwise, and decided to be the butt of jokes, and a planet unto itself.

Even if we agree not to look this particular gift horse in its oily mouth, agree that the rich benefactor has a right to put its money where its pot-belly is and gag its only possible critics (writers), what about its erratic administration of the prize? So one is forced to muse aloud... Why put in place ancient judges who openly confess to their ignorance of new trends in local literary production? Why install administrators and advisors (publishers or educators) who have been central to the collapse of the publishing and culture industry in Nigeria due to their philistinism? More importantly - this is a question hardly asked of this impostor: why is an oil business administering a prize instead of simply endowing it and handing it over to a literary organisation?

One is forced to muse aloud from the clarity of exile. What is the reason for the rotation of the yearly prize amongst the genres? Is that supposed to spread the graft equally amongst different forms, the better for the benefactor to cover its over-exposed and oily ass? Why not let the best book win in whatever genre or, at best, split the prize money over several genres such that they are all represented yearly. Would that perhaps reduce the financial haul? One presumes that the working illogic is that 50,000 dollars is enough to shut the loudest critic up. And why denominate the prize in a foreign currency? How very ‘Nigerian' is a "nigerian Literature Prize" in a foreign currency? The naira is not ‘hard' enough, is it? How hard must one get to win a hard prize? The lower-case NLNG ‘nigerian' prize reminds one of an ailment numerous in these North American parts - bi-polar disease - in this case of a literary kind. The sick and, to quote Obama, "silly season", is here again, with its usual melodrama. One poet, Remi Raji, was shot in the leg by judges. No one is questioning the right of a judge to kill at will. It is part of the morbid manner of promoting the prize for dunces.

From this foreign perch, one muses... This is the age of the reign of Mac Flecknoe all over the land, in the public and private spheres, in institutions, civil and uncivil. The cancer has spread to our literature. The cultural arena is being high-jacked by those who are "designed for thoughtless majesty; / Thoughtless as monarch-oaks that shade the plain, /And spread in solemn/ State, supinely reign." We need to begin to remove the dunce caps and stop mad-capping around.

Canada-based Amatoritsero Ede is the author of ‘Globetrotter & Hitler's Children'.

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[Sola Osofisan]

By Tade Ipadeola

Literature, especially poetry, ultimately is about truth and beauty. Think John Keats. We may look at a poem from a contemporary poet to catch a glimpse of this idea so central to life. In the opening lines of his poem, Symposium, Paul Muldoon had this to say:

‘You can lead a horse to water but you cant make it hold its nose to the grindstone and hunt with the hounds.'

Poets would say that is a shimmering, heartbreakingly beautiful way of stating the obvious. You may excuse Chima Ibeneche, managing director of NLNG, the specialist gas company of Nigeria, for not caring particularly for Keats or Muldoon or Remi Raji or Hyginus Ekwuazi: he is a man of science.

But neither Mr. Ibeneche nor his company may be excused any indifference to truth. They deal in liquefied gas, something they transport at many degrees below zero. Mr. Ibeneche knows exactly what happens if any error occurs in determining the true temperature at which he transports liquefied gas. There is only one word for it: disaster.

Now, if this is the consequence of an error with gas, what is the consequence, the real consequence, of an error with national literature? But is Mr. Ibeneche to be bothered? His wife will sing at the next awards.

The key players

The NLNG seemed determined to ensure that there were no errors. At inception they got talking with Nduka Otiono who was then national secretary of the Association of Nigerian Authors.

They also got talking to some icons of Nigerian Letters. The prominent names and faces were those of Professors Ayo Banjo, Theo Vincent, Femi Osofisan and Dan Izevbaye. What emerged from the rubbing of bellies between the parties generated immediate hostile reactions from the body of writers.

First, the company excluded Nigerian writers resident abroad from their literature prize. Next, it took a dark route to giving its prize the nomenclature of the Nigerian Prize for Literature, with none of the stakeholders, namely writers and the National Council of Arts assenting.

The company also refused to endow the prize properly and insisted on administering it by itself. Now, there is no surer recipe for disaster than operating outside your core competencies, but in this matter, since what was at stake was literature and not gas, the NLNG couldn't care less what writers wrote or said.

A leading poet and writer who raised the red flag of caution at inception was Odia Ofeimun. He itemised the objectionable elements in NLNG's modus vivendi and said in not so many words that if it persisted in its plans it was going to end up with a ghetto prize instead of a truly respectable literary prize.

The NLNG, impervious to reason, ignored him. That poet swore never to enter his works for the NLNG ghetto prize. Some thought at that time that Ofeimun's position was extreme.

Early dissenters

Transparency is a key best practice. The NLNG could not deign to be transparent. It decided to play hide and seek with Nigerians regarding the identity of the judges.

They preferred to further diminish the stature of the prize by not announcing beforehand who these noble personalities are. In other places, organisers of literary prizes make a lot of cultural capital out of announcing the identity of judges.

A sound literary panel of judges is evidence of good taste, critical intelligence, gender and demographic sensitivity. I am not sure if any woman ever served on the NLNG's panel of judges. Compare the odd approach of NLNG to, say, the Neudstat Prize. Anyone can go online and see who the jury members are.

Not content to simply hamstringing the prize horse with anonymity, the NLNG panel of judges since 2004 has turned out one controversial verdict after another. It began to resemble a death-kiss, the prize.

And then the irritating habit of inviting to the award ceremonies known enemies of Nigerian Literature particularly, and mass literacy in general. A poet, perhaps the most gifted in his generation, Benson Eluma, thought this proclivity of NLNG is an extreme display of contempt for our literature.

When NLNG quite deliberately decided to invite Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, I knew it was gung-ho about humiliating the writers of Nigeria and then decided never to enter my works. Anyone who does accept such a prize, in my view, does so in disservice to Nigerian Literature.

And what shall it profit that writer? Another poet of stature in his generation, Niran Okewole, winner of the Berlin International Poetry Festival 2008, publicly advocated that poets ignore this repugnant prize.

A Trojan steed

The ghost of Artaud entered the picture in 2009. When the call for entries went out, no one was told that the rules had changed. We all got to learn that this was the position when Remi Raji's sterling collection of poetry, Gather My Blood Rivers of Song, was disqualified for containing a ‘rehash' of previously published poems. Now, it is a mortal sin in a literary judge to use words such as ‘rehash' loosely.

I happen to know personally that Raji's entry contained not a single poem from ‘Lovesong for my Wasteland', Raji's only previously submitted volume of poetry. And there was no rule against submitting either selected poems or collected poems. Except this anonymous panel of judges invented that illiterate rule ex post facto.

A long-list of nine was nevertheless announced. No one was prepared for what happened on the night of the awards. None but one of the writers on the long-list was invited. NLNG gave the prize money to the Nigerian Academy of Letters. It's a delicate situation.

We wait to see if the Academy accepts this $50,000 Trojan steed. The NLNG insists it dealt with Mr. Otiono in his personal capacity. But that claim cannot now stand with NAL. In the twilight of these idols, they attempt to lead the horse to hunt with the hounds. And therein lies the tragedy.


Tade Ipadeola, a poet and lawyer, is the author of A Time of Signs.

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[Sola Osofisan]

NLNG Prize, My Response-Ilagha
By Nengi Josef Ilagha

A POET is a man of feeling, and if I don't express my feelings on this matter, I will be failing in my duty. The fact of the matter is that the Nigeria Academy of Letters, NAL, was not listed among the nine frontline poets contesting for the prize. And therefore, the Academy should not be in a hurry to spend one dime of the $50,000 in question. The Academy should do the right, proper and honourable thing by rejecting the prize money.

Let's face it. My name is Nengi Josef Ilagha. I am the author of January Gestures. It is the first chapter of a 12-part diary of poems running through the entire calendar.

The book was published in 2007 alongside February Fabrics. March Marbles through December Decibels are all awaiting publication. I dare say no poet, living or dead, has ever embarked upon such a grand and elaborate odyssey.

I stand to be corrected. Mark you, I was not disqualified for the 2009 Nigeria Prize for Literature. I made the shortlist of nine out of 163 poets, and if anybody says I didn't win, they should prove it.

As things stand, I will do well to invoke a court injunction against spending the money, and I believe the spirit of Gani Fawehinmi would see reason with me. There must be lawyers out there who will take up this case with great pride and readiness. Yes, I will go so far as to sue the NLNG for attempting to bring my father's honourable name to public disrepute.

I will not stand back and fold my hands. I shall not suffer fools gladly. I will crow like a noon-day cock. I will sound my gong like a distressed town-crier. I hereby lay claim to the sum of $50,000, being the amount advertised and orchestrated by the NLNG as having been set aside for the 2009 Nigeria Prize for Literature.

Ogaga Ifowodo is a well-known Nigerian poet and lawyer. I hereby contract him to prosecute the case, in his own interest. I am in earnest. Enough is enough.

In fact, I am embarking on an international campaign against the entire event. I read on the internet that Ahmed Maiwada was the only poet that was present at the venue.

That is not correct. I shudder to recall that I was stopped at the entrance to the event, and ordered by bouncers to turn back even after I had identified myself as one of the contestants, touting my book. I stood to my full royal height, and insisted on witnessing the event all the way. It took the intervention of Emeka Agbayi to let me and my well-meaning guests in. I feel truly wounded. Frankly, I feel bloodied.

Maiwada may have been the only poet with a formal invitation card, but I was there in person. Ask Maiwada. He came to my table, we shook hands, and he wished me well. Ask Emman Usman Shehu. Ask Chiedu Ezeanah. Ask Ike Okonta. Even Dim Odumegwu Ojukwu may jolly well be my witness. I am not an invisible man. In point of fact, I was very visible because I turned out in national colours suitable for an event of that magnitude. It is the first time in recorded Nigerian history when a poet would appear in patriotic green, white, green colours befitting of a king, and there are pictures to prove it. NLNG should check their photo file. Nigeria, I say, cannot afford to deny her own colours.

I insist that it is outrageous for a beneficiary to be decided upon, outside the ring of contestants. I never heard of a fight between boxers slugging it out on the mart and then, in the end, it was the referee who went home with the golden belt.

The entire event was a charade, and it brings the Nigeria Prize for Literature to great ridicule. We are faced with a classic example of a lopsided value system with no regard for merit. In the end, Nigeria as a nation would be the worse for it. It is time to redeem Nigeria. It is time for worship.

If NLNG is not prepared to part with the prize money, and hand it over nicely to me, they should stop parading themselves as the foremost literary sponsor in Nigeria. Come to that, if the multi-national agency felt obliged to lend a helping hand to the Nigeria Academy of Letters, it could have done so under a different platform, and the world would applaud. This prize was specifically for the winner, or joint-winners of the 2009 Nigerian Prize for Literature, as the case may be.

The professors who constitute the panel of judges (four of whom are confirmed members of the Academy) parade sterling credentials. Perhaps they should write poetry as one man and enter for the prize as well, instead of practically awarding the prize to themselves. It is a great shame that, after all that rhapsody by Professor Ayo Banjo about the newfound maturity in content and style as evident in the works of the nine Nigerian poets, the panel of judges could not decide a winner, to say nothing of joint winners. Evidently, it puts the credibility of the judges to question.

The worst case scenario, in my opinion, should be that all nine poets should share the prize money, since the distinguished panel of judges even failed to announce the shortlist of three that was promised at the World Press Conference staged at Eko Le Meridian in Lagos much earlier.

What's the point selecting nine out of 163 poets, and failing to decide the best three, if not a clear winner? I need my money. I live by the words from my pen. All those who say a labourer is not deserving of his wages have read the Bible upside down.

After this, NLNG should be more comfortable sponsoring the next beauty pageant or the next Face of Africa event. I can see them readily parting with the said amount in support of football, for instance. They may jolly well sponsor anything but intellectual endeavour.

For how long do we continue to despise the fruits of our own labour? As I see it, the primary purpose of the award has been defeated, but NLNG will not get away with this pointless jamboree.

Only in Nigeria, I suppose, do we hear of a prize money so widely advertised and so orchestrated as having been set aside for literary productivity, only to be denied in the long run on truly fallacious grounds.

Even if a composite anthology, a selection from the books of the nine poets was conceived, or even a promotional tour around the West African sub-region was proposed, it would have made more sense than this precipitate slap on the face of Nigerian literature.

I feel particularly scandalized by NLNG. They did this to my wife at the maiden edition in 2004. Bina Nengi-Ilagha clearly won the $20,000 prize with her first novel, Condolences, a novel that remains acclaimed for its originality. Yet they brought in two other novelists to share the prize money, and even at that it was 5,000 dollars apiece. NLNG went back to Bonny with $5,000 . Can you beat that? No, you can't. I have every reason to be grateful to Wole Soyinka for his timely intervention at that event. Alas, there was no Soyinka at the 2009 edition, but that is not to say NLNG should go scot-free. Enough is enough.

I suggest that an independent arbitration panel constituted by international critics of poetry revisit the works of the nine poets in question and come up with the winner, since the task is evidently too much for the panel of judges set up by NLNG. Please ask me another question.

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