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At NSPP 2019, Okoye, Okpara, Ogwiji win

Ogugua Micah Okoye, Okpara Ugochukwu Damian and Ehi-Kowochio Ogwiji have emerged winners of the fourth Nigerian Students Poetry Prize (NSPP).

Ogugua Micah Okoye, Okpara Ugochukwu Damian and Ehi-Kowochio Ogwiji have emerged winners of the fourth Nigerian Students Poetry Prize (NSPP). Held recently at the Niger Delta University, Amassoma, Wilberforce Island, Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, the award organisers said at the close of entries on March 18, 2019, 504 poems from students representing 96 tertiary institutions including universities, polytechnics, colleges of education and schools of nursing and seminary schools.

Ogugua, a 300-level student of applied biochemistry, Enugu State University of Science and Technology clinched the first prize with his poem, Micah, while
Okpara, a 400-level student of anatomy, Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University, Uli, came second with the poem, Suicide Warning Signs. An Artefact of a Groin War authored by Ogwiji, a 500-level student of agricultural extension and rural development at the University of Ibadan won the third prize.

A five-man judging panel, including Mallam Al-Bishak (a professor of English Literature, Federal University, Lafia), Professor Hülya N Yılmaz (a retired Liberal Arts Professor, Pennsylvania State University, USA), Kukogho Iruesiri Samson (Winner, GTB Dusty Manuscript Prize, 2018), Dr. Obari Gomba (award-winning poet and lecturer at University of Port Harcourt) and Gbenga Adesina (Winner, Brunel African Poetry Prize, 2016) reviewed the entries to select the top 100 poems for inclusion in the NSPP 2019 anthology.

“As a judge, I was looking for language, for charge and was willing to accommodate at the barest level ‘familiar excellence’. Echoes of voices here and there. I was looking for a further brilliance within that familiar excellence. I was prepared to be shocked, an aesthetic turn that had something of a kick in it, a turn, a loop, a leap from the familiar into the unmapped, a blast of light from the writer’s heart into mine. I found that,” remarked Adesina.

University of Ibadan, which had the highest number of entrants, emerged as the best participating school. Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University, Uli had the highest number of entrants on the longlist and was acknowledged with a trophy as the top-perfoming institution.

The consolation prize winners for placed entrants, Anuoluwa Olusegun Soneye from Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife and Ibelachi Franklyn Chinedu from Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, Uli got N20,000 each.

As sponsors of the NSPP 2019 Awards, Niger Delta University was also awarded a trophy recognizing their immense contributions to the success of the Prize.

The NSPP was instituted in 2016 to stimulate literary creativity among Nigerian students. Noah Oladele from Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Bakre Fadil
Adedamola from University of Ibadan and Godstime Iberiyenari Tamunofiri from
Niger Delta University won the 2016, 2017 and 2018 editions of the Prize respectively.

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