Ifowodo Wins NLNG’s $100,000 Nigeria Prize For Poetry With Collection On Violence

Poet and lawyer Ogaga Ifowodo has won the 2026 Nigeria Prize for Literature, worth $100,000, for his collection Why Does God Need a Gun? The book looks at religious and political violence in Nigeria.

He was named winner at the Nigeria LNG Limited (NLNG) grand award night in Lagos on Friday, October 9. The collection was chosen from 223 entries and beat two other shortlisted poets, James Ngwu Eze for Unbind Me Now and Tares Oburumu for Flora’s Love Colony.

Announcing the result, the chairman of the prize’s Advisory Board, Professor Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo, described the winning book as a sensitive portrayal of religious and political violence, told in the voice of an imagined victim. She praised all three shortlisted collections for technical skill, confidence and mature use of language.

At the centre of the book is Leah Sharibu, one of the schoolgirls abducted from Dapchi, Yobe State, in 2018. The collection also questions why a God who is almighty and merciful should need a gun to be defended.

NLNG’s Managing Director and CEO, Adeleye Falade, said the Nigeria Prizes exist to recognise achievement in science, literature and creative expression. This year’s literature prize was devoted to poetry, one of four genres that rotate each year with prose fiction, drama and children’s literature. The Creative Arts Prize winners, two documentaries chosen from 98 submissions, were also announced at the event.

Ifowodo’s earlier collection A Good Mourning was shortlisted for the prize in 2017. He is also a scholar, columnist and human rights activist, and received the 1998 PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award.

Sources: Arise News, Leadership, Writing Africa, BellaNaija and Economy Post, October 9 and 10, 2026.