11 Poets, 11 Stories: How Nigeria’s New Verse Is Rewriting Memory & Identity

POETRY rarely arrives from nowhere.

Behind every collection is usually a memory, a wound, a question, a place or an experience that refuses to disappear.

That reality came into sharp focus in Lagos as the 11 poets longlisted for the 2026 Nigeria Prize for Literature opened up about the experiences behind their works.

The poets spoke at the CORA-NLNG Book Party, where they moved beyond the titles on the longlist to discuss migration, colonialism, violence, faith, childhood, identity, history and the responsibilities of the writer.

The conversation revealed something larger than a competition for Nigeria’s most prestigious literary prize.

It showed a generation of poets using verse to interrogate the country’s past and confront its present.

Poetry as a Record of Experience

Four of the poets attended the event physically.

Ogaga Ifowodo, James Ngwu Eze, Tares Oburumu and Ayo Oyeku appeared in Lagos, while Tanure Ojaide, Paul Akpomuje, Adedayo Agarau, Rasaq Malik Gbolahan, Ajibola Tolase, Theresa Lola and Saddiq Dzukogi participated virtually.

Juliet Nnaji moderated the conversation.

The result was an unusually intimate portrait of the writers behind the books.

For Tares Oburumu, Flora’s Love Colony grew from his encounter with Nigeria’s colonial history and the story of Flora Shaw, the woman associated with the naming of Nigeria.

His interest in that history eventually became a meditation on colonialism, identity and the complicated inheritance of the Nigerian state.

But the book also carries the memory of a difficult childhood in the Niger Delta.

Oburumu recalled paddling canoes to school and growing up without books.

He said he was about 15 when he first read a book.

Now, if the prize changes his circumstances, he wants to build a library for primary school pupils.

His ambition illustrates one of the recurring themes of the Book Party.

For many of the poets, literary success is not simply about personal recognition.

It is also about creating opportunities for others.

When Poetry Confronts Violence

For Ogaga Ifowodo, poetry became a vehicle for confronting religious hypocrisy and violence.

His collection, Why Does God Need a Gun?, takes its moral urgency from the case of Leah Sharibu and the wider realities of religious persecution and violence.

Ifowodo questioned the contradiction inherent in people claiming to defend God through violence.

His poetry therefore moves beyond religious commentary.

It becomes an interrogation of power, faith and human responsibility.

For a writer who has been longlisted for the Nigeria Prize for Literature three times, the recognition also carries personal significance.

He sees repeated selection among hundreds of entries as confirmation that his work has continued to command attention.

If he wins, he wants to establish an annual poetry prize at his former school, Federal Government College, Warri.

Again, the prize becomes a possible instrument for giving back.

The Veteran & the Lessons of Childhood

Tanure Ojaide approaches the longlist from a different position.

A veteran poet with decades of experience, he described the recognition as another stage in a long literary career.

His collection, Adult Love: In the Childhood Garden, draws heavily on childhood experiences in the Niger Delta.

Nature, water, animals and village life become sources of reflection about human values.

For Ojaide, poetry remains connected to the question of how people behave.

Politics may dominate public debate.

Power may determine institutions.

But the poet argues that human conduct ultimately remains the measure of society.

If he wins, Ojaide plans to invest in writing education, workshops and programmes designed to help emerging writers develop their craft.

Reclaiming History Through Epic Poetry

Saddiq Dzukogi’s Bakandamiya: An Elegy emerged from a challenge.

His mentor and editor asked why African poets had not produced major epics in recent times.

Dzukogi accepted the challenge almost immediately.

The resulting work also became an attempt to challenge historical assumptions about Hausa culture.

After encountering a historian’s suggestion that Hausa people lacked mythology, Dzukogi chose poetry as a response.

He sought to demonstrate that Hausa history contains myth, imagination and humanity.

His approach illustrates one of poetry’s most powerful functions.

It can contest the way history is remembered.

It can challenge narratives imposed from outside.

And it can restore complexity to communities reduced to simplistic descriptions.

Names, Migration & Belonging

For Theresa Lola, identity begins with something as personal as a name.

Her collection, Ceremonies for the Nameless, grew partly from her experience of moving between Nigeria and Britain.

She recalled how people outside her family struggled to pronounce her Nigerian name.

That experience prompted questions about naming, identity and destiny.

Her story also reflects the determination required to pursue writing professionally.

After studying accounting at university, she chose to pursue writing more seriously.

Her appearance on the longlist now represents recognition for a decision made more than a decade ago.

She sees literary prizes as part of the infrastructure that keeps writers, publishers and readers connected.

Migration as a Literary Wound

Paul Akpomuje approached poetry through migration.

A migration scholar, he used Black Passport to explore diasporic life and the complications of moving between countries and identities.

His literary journey also demonstrates the unpredictable paths through which writers emerge.

He recalled winning a university poetry competition in Ile-Ife in 2007.

Years later, he found himself on the Nigeria Prize for Literature longlist.

His story reflects the changing nature of Nigerian literary discovery.

A poet may begin in a university competition, publish abroad or share work online and eventually reach the country’s biggest literary platforms.

The Digital Generation Arrives

Adedayo Agarau’s journey offers perhaps the clearest example of that changing literary ecosystem.

He began sharing poems on Facebook.

His collection, The Years of Blood, draws from experiences of growing up in Oyo State and confronting a Nigeria increasingly marked by fear, kidnapping and insecurity.

He said leaving Nigeria gave him the emotional distance to express some of those experiences.

He began writing the poems during a flight to the United States.

The story is significant because it challenges the traditional image of literary discovery.

A writer no longer necessarily needs to emerge through established publishing institutions.

Social media can provide the first audience.

Digital communities can provide encouragement.

Literary prizes can then provide a much larger platform.

Healing Historical Wounds

Rasaq Malik Gbolahan’s The Origin of Wounds asks where Nigeria’s historical wounds began.

For him, understanding present-day problems requires confronting their origins.

His own journey began with posting poetry on Facebook in 2010 while he was a student at the University of Ibadan.

The longlist, he said, made him feel seen and recognised.

His plans for a possible prize win again point beyond individual success.

He wants to create a literary journal and take poetry into schools.

The pattern is striking.

Many of the poets see literary recognition as an opportunity to build institutions, mentor younger writers or expand access to books.

Poetry as a Call to Action

James Ngwu Eze brings a more overtly political urgency to the longlist.

His collection, Unbind Me Now, emerged from what he described as a desire to set an agenda for Nigeria at a dangerous moment.

For Eze, silence can become dangerous when society faces serious political and social challenges.

He wants poetry to awaken Nigerians.

If he wins, he plans to support literary festivals, including the Return to Idoto initiative associated with the legacy of Christopher Okigbo.

His approach reinforces the long tradition of Nigerian poetry as a form of social commentary.

Animism, Physics & a New Creative Life

Ayo Oyeku’s journey is another example of the unconventional paths through which writers emerge.

He studied physics and worked in the corporate world.

He eventually left his job in 2016 to write.

His collection, Corpus Animistic Verses, grew from research into Ifa and the role of animism in Nigerian culture.

Oyeku’s work demonstrates how contemporary Nigerian poetry can combine scholarship, spirituality and personal reinvention.

His story also reflects the risks involved in choosing literature as a vocation.

Race, Colonialism & the Nigerian Experience

Ajibola Tolase’s 2000 Blacks takes the conversation beyond Nigeria.

Having lived on two continents, Tolase examines race, colonialism and migration.

His work reflects the experience of Nigerians who navigate societies shaped by the continuing consequences of colonial history.

For him, the value of winning would lie less in changing his writing than in attracting more readers to poetry.

That emphasis is important.

A literary prize ultimately depends on an audience willing to read beyond the headlines.

A Prize Changing the Literary Ecosystem

Across the conversations, the poets repeatedly returned to the influence of the Nigeria Prize for Literature.

They described it as a source of motivation, visibility and legitimacy.

The growing number of poets and submissions suggests that literary prizes can influence what writers believe is possible.

But the deeper transformation may lie in what happens after recognition.

Oburumu wants to build a library.

Ifowodo wants to establish a school poetry prize.

Ojaide wants to support writing workshops.

Gbolahan wants to create a literary journal and take poetry to schools.

Eze wants to sustain literary festivals.

Agarau wants to continue supporting literary initiatives.

Their ambitions reveal an ecosystem increasingly aware that literary success cannot end with the individual writer.

More Than a Competition

The 2026 longlist therefore represents more than 11 collections competing for one prize.

It represents 11 different ways of remembering Nigeria.

There is Nigeria through the eyes of the migrant.

Nigeria through the memory of the village.

Nigeria through the experience of violence.

Nigeria through mythology.

Nigeria through colonial history.

Nigeria through faith, race, childhood and political anxiety.

The poets have turned those experiences into verse.

The Book Party gave them something equally important: an audience willing to listen.

That may ultimately be the most enduring value of the Nigeria Prize for Literature.

The winner will receive the official recognition.

But the wider literary culture gains something larger when readers discover new voices and those voices inspire another generation to write.

In that sense, the 11 poets are not simply competing for a prize.

They are participating in the continuing effort to tell Nigeria’s story.