At last, the $50, 000 NLNG Prize reveals identities of past judges!

After years of controversy over who exactly is deciding these prizes, and why their identities are kept secret, the Nigeria LNG has this month finally revealed those who chose the books of Kaine Agary, Mabel Segun, Gabriel Okara and others.

Kaine Agary

The jury’s decision to withhold the award of the literature prize, last year, shook the literary and educational establishment. In a brief six page report, it re-echoed the self-evident fact that the decline in reading and writing standards, evident since the 1990s, had accelerated sharply between mid 2004 and 2009.

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That decision also brought Nigeria LNG Limited a large and varied postbag. Many registered vehement opposition to the jury’s decision, but the NLNG has always maintained that the identity of the judges was discreet to allow them assess the entries received objectively and unencumbered free from influence and insisted that the judges were men and women of high integrity.

Now, that has changed.

In the first four years of the Prize, the panel of judges for the Literature prize was led by Prof. Dan Izevbaye of the University of Ibadan. Other members of the panel include Prof. Charles Nnolim, a retired Professor of English at the University of Port-Harcourt, a well respected international literary critic and member of the Order of the Niger, Prof. Zaynab Alkali, a literary critic and Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Nassarawa State University, Prof. Rasheed Abubakar and Dr. Reuben Abati, a first class honours graduate of Theater Arts from the University of Calabar where he won the Vice-Chancellor’s prize for the best overall graduating student and presently the chairman of the editorial board of The Guardian newspapers.

In 2008, Prof. Mary Kolawole, Prof. of English, Obafemi Awolowo University and chair for African region in the 2006 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize. replaced Prof. Zaynab Alkali. Dr. Reuben Abati was replaced by Prof. Tanimu Abubakar, of the Department of English and Literary Studies, Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria when their tenures were over. The other judges remained on the panel for continuity.

This year, a new set of judges have been appointed. Prof. Dapo Adelugba, one of Nigeria's foremost theatre arts teachers, and four other eminent scholars – Professor Kalu Uka, Professor John Illah, Professor Mary Kolawole and Professor Abubakar Tanimu – will decide the fate of the writers even as the competition gets keener both in numbers and geography. Many renowned foreign based writers are in the running for the prize.

Forty scientists and 92 foreign and home based playwrights are competing for this year’s pre-eminent prizes in literature and science – The Nigeria Prizes for Science and The Nigeria Prize for Literature.
The Science entries are currently being assessed by a panel of judges headed by Prof. Emeritus Anya O. Anya, a chartered biologist with over 120 scholarly publications and the chairman of the Nigeria National Merit Award Committee. Other members of the Anya Panel are Professor Emeritus Grace Olaniyan-Taylor, Professor Awele Maduemezia, Professor Lateef Salako and Professor Gabriel Ogunmola, a former president of the Nigerian Academy of Science.