The NLNG Prize for Literature

I pride the fact that I can be totally objective even when my friends or family are involved, so again I'm faced with knowing one of two people in a situation that could strengthen the fact that Nigerians are just a bunch of overly corrupt and plain stupid people who would rather think of who they know and how the bond of being ex-classmates or relatives could out-weigh something as simple as looking at 'wait for it' WHICH IS THE BETTER BOOK arrghhhhhhhhhhh.

So before I go of tangent, I will introduce to my present bane of contention, The NLNG writers award. This group like the Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature or the Booker Prize seek to give out prizes mostly cash to outstanding writers. The authors and their books who get nominated our all are all trimmed down by a panel till a final selection is made and these are entered for the award and the winner of the award should be chosen based on the books CONTENT.

Where such side attractions like the authors state of origin, schools attended, Cause presently pursued and who is known well and how come into play, then the award is said to be RIGGED, BIASE AND NOT TRUE TO WHAT IR SHOULD STAND FOR.

It's the 5th edition of the NLNG Prize for Literature, the two main contenders are Jude Dibia for the book Unbridled and Kaine Agary for Yellow Yellow.

Print media coverage for these two writers has however been suspiciously sided and so I wonder has a winner been chosen already and if this winner has been chosen, pray tell on what grounds; content of the book or knowing who the organizers are. An amazing occurrence in the build up to the finals of the book prize which should all end tomorrow is the ability for friends of friends to come out and bad mouth one writer to favour the other. How is it possible we let this happen without shutting these Idiots up. So I wonder how Ms. Miss Pamela Udoka (author of a children's book Rejected Blessings) could publicly call one of these writers a 'Bad and Corrupt writer' on what grounds and why not in the privacy of her own home where she could have been applauded by her friends and family.

There was also the comment in the Guardian's review page for the 10th of October very sadly today, a day before the final announcement "the new face of Nigerian literature is a woman, and when the curtain draws for 2008 Nigerian Literature prize tomorrow, one feminine...or mascu-feminine writer will emerge..." Yep this is what an obviously paid off writer in one of Nigeria's well reputed newspapers deemed it fit to be able to string his words together.

So will these books Yellow Yellow and Unbridled be judged objectively or not? Or has the winner been chosen based on who is known where and for how long, be the final outcome?

I know who has been reportedly chosen but lets see if corruption and a twisted mentality wins the day.

We await the results patiently.