Ogaga Ifowodo, winner, Nigeria Prize for Literature: The writer must reflect the pains, joys of society

By Damiete Braide

Poet, lawyer and human rights activist Ogaga Ifowodo has described winning the 2026 Nigeria Prize for Literature as a profound validation of his literary journey, while insisting that writing must confront the injustices and tragedies of its time. His winning poetry collection, which draws on the ordeal of Leah Sharibu, the schoolgirl abducted by Boko Haram, examines religious extremism, the abuse of faith and the enduring power of literature to preserve humanity’s experiences. In this interview, Ifowodo reflects on his victory, the personal experiences that shaped his activism, the politics of art and why he believes Nigeria LNG Limited should reward shortlisted writers.

‘Leah Sharibu’s Story Must Never Be Erased’

You have won the Nigeria Prize for Literature. Do you feel fulfilled by the achievement?

I do. I do not know any writer, whether in Nigeria, America or Europe, who would not be exhilarated by winning a prize of this magnitude. There are not many literary awards that come with such a substantial financial reward. Even the T.S. Eliot Prize in the United Kingdom, one of the most coveted awards for poetry, offers £25,000, approximately $33,000. The Nigeria Prize for Literature is worth $100,000, making it considerably larger.

Winning is a big deal. Any writer who does not feel fulfilled by such recognition probably needs to reconsider what writing means to them, or perhaps they do not fully appreciate what the award represents.

Beyond the monetary value, however, is the validation it offers. Sometimes, the recognition that comes with a prize can be more valuable than the money itself. It affirms that your work deserves the attention of readers and encourages you to continue doing what you have been doing.

In my case, I am grateful on both counts. The financial reward is significant, but the validation is equally important. I believe the award has helped place me before a wider reading public as a writer whose work deserves serious attention.

What inspired you to write about Leah Sharibu?

I believe I have already given away much of my motivation in the notes accompanying the poems. We are all witnesses to the degradation of human values taking place in the name of religion. I would even describe some of these actions as blasphemous because they involve invoking the name of God to justify atrocities.

The Abrahamic religions; Judaism, Christianity and Islam, have, at different points in history, been associated with conflicts, conquest and attempts to impose particular beliefs on others. Many indigenous religious traditions, by contrast, do not necessarily have the same imperial ambitions. They often seek a relationship between human beings, the spiritual world and the environment that allows for a measure of harmony and balance.

People across cultures have different understandings of the Almighty. Yet, in trying to understand the relationship between humanity and God, we should not arrive at the conclusion that anyone who does not accept our conception of God deserves to die.

Take Isese, the indigenous Yoruba religious tradition, for example. I do not see it as having an inherent mission to conquer other people or demand that they abandon their beliefs under threat of death.

The problem becomes even more apparent when we examine the claims of religions that teach that humanity was created by God. If we believe that God created human beings from dust or clay and breathed life into them, making them in the divine image, why would that same God authorise us to kill, enslave or destroy other people?

If God created all human beings, how can we justify claiming divine authority to seize land from others, particularly when those people are also understood to be God’s creation?

These contradictions invite us to examine the claims of people who describe themselves as God’s representatives and compare those claims with their actions. Can someone claim to serve a merciful and compassionate God while committing acts of cruelty in that God’s name? That is the central motivation behind the book.

Leah Sharibu’s story provided a particularly powerful lens through which to examine these questions. She was about 14 or 15 when she was abducted alongside her schoolmates in the 2018 Dapchi school kidnapping. She was reportedly offered freedom if she renounced her Christian faith.

Imagine being taken away from your parents at that age, held in the forest among strangers, without the comfort of a familiar face, and being told that your freedom depends on abandoning what you believe. Yet she reportedly refused. That is an extraordinary act of courage, deserving of recognition a million times over.

I knew I could not allow Boko Haram or other insurgents to succeed in silencing her permanently. Their objective was not simply to take away her physical freedom. It was also to erase her identity, deny her agency and reduce her to someone whose future would be determined entirely by her captors.

I wanted to make her speak, not merely through a passing news report, but through a book. There is a particular irony in using literature, a vehicle for knowledge and expression, to amplify the voice of someone held by people associated with the slogan that Western education is forbidden.

Through the poems, the tables are turned. Leah becomes the figure through whom questions about faith, morality and the nature of God are raised. Her captors claim religious authority, but the collection invites readers to ask who truly understands the meaning of faith and compassion.

There is a moment in which she observes her captors praying and wonders whom they are praying to. Are they praying to God, or have they allowed hatred to become a black stone within their hearts? That question captures the moral contradiction at the centre of the book.

We do not know Leah’s present circumstances with certainty, and that uncertainty makes her story even more troubling. Her experience represents a form of extraordinary heroism that borders on martyrdom.

But Leah is also more than an individual figure in the collection. She becomes a composite representation of the Chibok girls, the boys abducted from schools, women who have been raped, families whose homes have been burnt and communities devastated by terrorism. Her story allows us to speak about the experiences of countless victims whose names may never become widely known.

Literature is important, because it preserves the record of our existence. Long after a civilisation has disappeared, people may study its cave paintings, artefacts and other surviving evidence to reconstruct how its people lived and what they experienced.

In the same way, literature written in our time may become one of the enduring records through which future generations understand Boko Haram, religious terrorism and the violence confronting our society.

Hundreds or thousands of years from now, people may turn to these poems and other literary works to understand what happened in our time. They may ask how human beings could invoke religion while inflicting such suffering on others.

Storytelling has always been central to human civilisation because we learn from experience. By telling Leah’s story, we preserve not only her ordeal but also the experiences of the many people whose lives have been shattered by violence. That is why the book matters to me.

‘My Activism and Poetry Come From the Same Place’

Your life has been defined by activism, particularly your work as a lawyer and human rights advocate. How much of that activism finds expression in your poetry and this book?

I think the answer lies in the stories we choose to tell. We cannot compartmentalise our lives as neatly as we sometimes imagine. Everything we do is mediated by our background: where we were born, what we ate, what we wore, the language we spoke and the part of the world in which we grew up. Our environment shapes how we understand the world, and those experiences inevitably influence our writing.

Looking back, I can trace some of my activism to an incident from my childhood. In my first book, I dedicated the work to my mother, Augusta, with the words, in effect, that she was the person who heard my first poem: “Will the child not become a man?”

I was about six years old when my mother’s brother, after drinking, became involved in a minor altercation and laid his hands on her. I watched my mother writhe in pain. I was a child, and he was a grown man, but I held her hand and told her, “Mother, don’t cry. Will the child not become a man?” I have always regarded that statement as my first poem, even before the first formal poem I wrote at Federal Government College, Warri.

That childhood experience stayed with me. I had witnessed what I understood to be an injustice, something fundamentally unfair and wrong. My immediate reaction was to comfort my mother and imagine a future in which I would be capable of standing up against such behaviour. Perhaps that was one of the experiences that inclined me towards activism.

Our lives are shaped by the things we witness, the books we read and the lessons we learn. These experiences come together to influence how we live and what we choose to do. At different stages of my life, that impulse found expression in student activism, human rights advocacy and pro-democracy campaigns. I even went to prison because of my activism. All those experiences have informed the writer I have become.

For me, the writer cannot be separated from the society in which he lives. If you do not share your people’s experiences, their joys, their suffering and their moments of grief, what are you writing about, and who are you writing for?

These are the issues of our time. If I do not write about them, who will?

I also believe that all art is political in one way or another, even when the artist does not consciously set out to make a political statement.

Every work of art presents a particular perspective. Consider a landscape painting. We may all look at the same sky, but if two artists paint it, the results will differ. The colours they select, the way they arrange them and the details they emphasise will reflect their individual sensibilities.

That is the gift of every writer and artist: the ability to interpret a shared experience in a distinctive way.

We can see this in the work of Chinua Achebe, whose approach to storytelling gave expression to experiences that other writers might present differently. The events may be familiar, but the manner of telling them makes the difference.

Even when I paint a flower, the result will not necessarily resemble the flower painted by another artist. The difference is not simply in the subject but in the perspective.

Politics enters the picture when we consider the circumstances in which the work is created. At what moment am I painting that flower? Is the country burning while I paint it? What does my decision to focus on beauty, suffering or something apparently ordinary say about how I see the world? An artist’s perspective can reveal an entire story.

Politics should not be reduced to elections, governance or the struggle over how resources and positions of power are distributed. It also concerns the power to shape how people understand reality and whose interpretation they accept. Persuasion is a form of power, even when it is not exercised with guns or physical force. A writer can influence the way people see the world through language, imagination and the stories presented to them. That is where activism and literature meet for me.

How did you feel before you were announced as the winner at the award ceremony?

Interestingly, I remained calm throughout most of the evening. I told myself that there were three writers left and that one of us would win. The question was simply whether that person would be me. I had been shortlisted before without winning, so I was familiar with the experience of coming close to the prize without taking it home. At one point, I even considered turning to a fellow poet and asking whether, if he won, he would buy me a drink to console me.

Seriously, however, I was calm. I became a little tense when Professor Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo did not immediately announce the winner. I put my head down, but the feeling did not last long. I have always believed that a serious writer does not write simply to win prizes. If that is your only motivation for writing, you should put down your pen and reconsider what you are doing. You may enjoy writing as a hobby, and there is nothing wrong with that, but a genuine literary calling must go beyond the pursuit of awards.

Writers need to cultivate a love of the work itself. They also need informed and discerning readers who are willing to engage with what they produce. That said, when you have laboured over a book, it is natural to hope that your effort will be recognised. There is a saying that the labourer deserves his wages. You do not write a book merely to win a prize, but once you have completed the work, submitting it for consideration is perfectly reasonable.

You hope for two things. First, you want validation that what you have produced deserves the attention of the reading public. Second, you hope for a tangible reward for the labour you have invested.

If you do not win, it should not mean the end of your writing career. Losing a prize does not invalidate your work or mean you should abandon a calling that genuinely matters to you. When my name was announced, I felt elated. I also felt validated because the award represented years of work and commitment to literature.

To emerge as the winner from 223 poetry submissions is deeply satisfying. Being the last writer standing after such a competitive process gives you a sense of accomplishment, and that recognition becomes an incentive to keep working.

You have suggested that the Nigeria Prize for Literature should offer consolation prizes to shortlisted writers. Why do you consider this necessary?

I think it is time for Nigeria LNG Limited to introduce consolation prizes. The idea is long overdue. If the organisers do not wish to offer consolation prizes, perhaps they should reconsider bringing all three shortlisted writers to the award ceremony. They could announce the winner ahead of the event, as is done with some other prizes, so that the ceremony becomes an occasion for celebrating the winner rather than placing the finalists through an emotionally difficult experience.

When three writers are brought to the ceremony, everyone knows that only one will win. The other two must sit through the announcement knowing that they will leave without the principal award. I am not suggesting that the organisers intend to embarrass anyone. That is not the point. Rather, I believe that writers whose works have survived a rigorous selection process deserve recognition for the quality of their efforts.

Consider the journey involved. Hundreds of entries are submitted. A longlist is selected, then a shortlist, and finally one winner emerges. Reaching the final three is itself a considerable achievement. The two writers who do not win have also invested time, imagination and intellectual effort in producing their books. Their works have been examined by judges and deemed worthy of reaching the final stage. It would be appropriate to acknowledge that achievement in a tangible way.

Your proposal to NLNG?

My proposal is straightforward. At the longlist stage, each of the eight writers who do not make the final shortlist should receive $5,000. The three shortlisted writers would then be considered separately: the winner would receive the $100,000 grand prize, while each of the two runners-up would receive $10,000.

That would bring the total prize allocation to $160,000.

I believe NLNG can consider such an arrangement. It would demonstrate that the organisation values not only the ultimate winner but also the broader community of writers whose work contributes to Nigeria’s literary culture.

The award has already established itself as a major platform for recognising literary excellence. Introducing additional financial recognition would strengthen that reputation and provide meaningful encouragement to writers. Literature is not produced without sacrifice. Writers spend years developing ideas, researching, revising manuscripts and finding the right language to express what they want to say. Many also struggle to find publishers and reach readers. When a writer’s work advances through a competitive selection process, that achievement deserves to be acknowledged.

A consolation prize would not diminish the winner’s accomplishment. The $100,000 award would remain the principal recognition, and winning would continue to carry its enormous prestige. Instead, the additional prizes would recognise the fact that literary excellence is not always exhausted by the decision to select one book over another. There will always be one winner, but there can be several outstanding writers.I believe that distinction is important, and I hope NLNG will consider the proposal.

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