Ogaga Ifowodo is the winner of the 2026 Nigeria Prize for Literature, sponsored by Nigeria LNG Limited. He won the $100,000 award for his poetry collection, Why Does God Need a Gun?, announced at the prize ceremony in Lagos.
The winning work
Why Does God Need a Gun? was selected from 223 poetry submissions. The Advisory Board, chaired by Professor Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo, praised its rich allegorical treatment of religious and political violence in Nigeria.
The collection is described as using a “body, mind and spirit” structure to examine forces shaping contemporary realities, while engaging themes of extremism, intolerance, violence and public memory. It beat James Ngwu Eze’s Unbind Me Now and Tares Oburumu’s Flora’s Love Colony, the other two shortlisted collections.
Who he is
Ifowodo is a Nigerian poet, lawyer, scholar, columnist, public commentator and human-rights activist. He has also worked as a university professor, placing him within a tradition of Nigerian intellectuals who use literature to confront social and political contradictions.
His writing is strongly engaged with Nigerian public life: violence, history, faith, memory, justice and the relationship between private disappointment and political reality.
The prize
The Nigeria Prize for Literature, established in 2004 and now in its 22nd year, rotates annually among poetry, prose fiction, drama and children’s literature. The 2026 cycle was devoted to poetry, and the award carries a $100,000 cash prize.
This was not Ifowodo’s first appearance in the competition: he had previously been longlisted and shortlisted, making the 2026 win a notable milestone in a career spanning poetry, scholarship and activism.
What he plans to do
Ifowodo said that, if he won, his first priority would be to establish a poetry prize at Federal Government College, Warri—his alma mater and the place where he wrote his first poem in 1982.
