The Nigeria Prizes 2026 Set for Grand Award Night on October 9
The Nigeria Prizes will hold its 2026 Grand Award Night on October 9, bringing together the writers, filmmakers, and innovators behind this year’s shortlisted and winning works. The event will include the presentation of The Nigeria Prize for Literature, The Nigeria Prize for Creative Arts, and other NLNG-sponsored prizes. The Nigeria Prize for Literature, which rotates annually among four genres, is focused on poetry this year. Its shortlist of three comprises Tares Oburumu’s Flora’s Love Colony, Ogaga Iwowodo’s Why Does God Need A Gun?, and James Ngwu Eze’s Unbind Me Now. The three emerged from an initial 11-book longlist drawn from 223 entries, with the winner to be announced at the Grand Award Night.
The inaugural Nigeria Prize for Creative Arts has also reached its final stage, with five documentary filmmakers shortlisted from 98 submissions and an earlier longlist of 11. The finalists are Peter Oghenetega Oke for Beyond Tarkwa Bay, Feranmi Abiola for Mara Mania, Ummi Bukar for No Food for Lazy Man, Abraham Ayodele Aiwuyuse for Okrika, and Jessica Chinyere for Women of Salt: The Resilience of Ebonyi’s Women. Established in 2025, the prize focuses on documentary filmmaking and this inaugural competition explores the theme “Identity.” The five films approach Nigerian experience through subjects including waterfront communities, secondhand clothing culture, traditional salt production, and other dimensions of contemporary Nigerian life. The winner will receive US$20,000 and become the first recipient of the Creative Arts Prize.
The Grand Award Night comes as The Nigeria Prizes continue their broader programme of recognizing Nigerian literary, creative, and scientific achievement. NLNG says the annual ceremony commemorates the company’s first export of LNG cargo on October 9, 1999, with winners of its major prizes honoured at the event. This year, the celebration will bring together works that move between the page, the screen, and scientific innovation, underscoring the range of ideas and creative practices represented by the 2026 awards cycle.
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