Nigerian poet Ogaga Ifowodo has won the 2026 Nigeria Prize for Literature, Africa’s richest literary award, worth $100,000, for his poetry collection “Why Does God Need A Gun?”
The win, announced October 9, 2026 by the NLNG Advisory Board that oversees the prize, came after what reports described as previous unsuccessful attempts by Ifowodo in earlier editions before he finally clinched Nigeria’s most prestigious literary honour. The prize rotates annually among genres, and 2026 was poetry’s turn.
Ifowodo’s collection confronts themes of state violence and the use of religion to justify killing. Speaking after the win, he posed the question at the heart of the book: “Why do humans need God to justify a gun?”
The $100,000 purse makes the Nigeria Prize for Literature one of the richest literary prizes on the continent, and this year’s win adds Ifowodo to a growing list of Nigerian writers recognised for confronting the country’s social and political turmoil through verse.
