SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN

The Advisory Board for Nigeria Prize for Literature, sponsored by Nigeria LNG Limited, on Friday night, announced Nomad, authored by the poet, Romeo Oriogun, as the winner of the $100,000 prize for the 2022 cycle on Poetry.

Professor Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo, Chairperson of the Advisory Board, made the announcement at the Grand Award Night ceremony in Lagos, themed “Touching the Stars”.

She also announced Dr. Sakiru Adebayo as the 2022 winner of the Nigeria Prize for Literary Criticism, which comes with One Million Naira (N1,000,000) prize money.

Four winners of The Nigeria Prize for Science were also jointly awarded the prize money of $100,000. Muhydideen Oyekunle and Shehu Ado, as well as Sesan Peter Ayodeji and Emmanuel Olatunji Olatomilola, won the prize for their respective works titled, Gains in Grain Yield of Released Maize (Zea Mays L.) Cultivars under Drought and Well-Watered Conditions, and Development of Process Plant for Plantain Flour.

The winning book beat two other books on the shortlist of three, the Call of Water by Su’eddie Vershima Agema and Your Crib, My Qibla by Saddiq Dzukogi to clinch the prize. The book competed against 287 others submitted for the competition in 2022.

According to the judges, the winning book, Nomad, stands out as the most technically accomplished, rendering the topical subject of migration in a language laced with lyrical figurations. They stated that “the 67 poems in the collection were held together by a travel motif, marshalled in each poem with equal intensity, and linked to the African past, including the Middle Passage, and the African future.”

The panel of judges includes Sule Emmanuel Egya, who is the Chairman of the panel and a professor of African Literature and Cultural Studies at Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida University, Lapai, Niger State. Other judges are Toyin Adewale-Gabriel and Dike Chukwumerije. Adewale-Gabriel is a poet and fiction writer. Dike Chukwumerije is a spoken word and performance poet, and an award-winning author. Professor Susan Nalugwa Kiguli was the International Consultant for this year’s Prize. She is a Ugandan poet and an associate professor of literature at Makerere University.

Nigeria LNG Limited remains committed to responsible corporate citizenship, and The Nigeria Prize for Science, The Nigeria Prize for Literature and The Nigeria Prize for Literary Criticism are some of the company’s numerous contributions towards building a better Nigeria.