In an exclusive chat with Bookshelf on Thursday, Okpanachi attributed his recognition to God. “I am humbled by the kind of ovation I am receiving for a thing I produced in private under God’s inspiration,” he enthused. “It’s not the money. It’s the fact that we need to transform our people as writers and such recognition puts us in better positions to carry out the God-ordained roles.” For this purpose, Dr Okpanachi, a teacher at the Department of English, University of Maiduguri said, “I need prize monies like oxygen!”
Other writers on the long list of the NLNG-sponsored The Nigeria Prize for Literature are: Omo Uwaifo (Litany), Ahmed Maiwada (Fossils), Lindsay Barrett (A Memory of Rivers), Odoh Diego Okenyodo (From a Poem to its Creator), Hyginus Ekwuazi (Love Apart), Musa Idris Okpanachi (The Eaters of the Living), Ademola Dasylva (Songs of Odamolugbe), Nengi Josef Ilagha (January Gestures), and G’ebinyo Ogbowei (Song of a Dying River).
The prize committee will announce the short list of three from the nine books next month.
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