Plodding on from Pain, through Poetry, to the Prize…

Winning the NLNG-sponsored Nigeria Literature Prize is a big endorsement for US-based Romeo Oriogun, who disclosed that he has long stopped caring about validation from the local literary scene, writes Okechukwu Uwaezuoke

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urely, Romeo Oriogun could not have been less excited about becoming the fourth winner of the poetry genre of the Nigeria LNG-sponsored literary prize, which was first jointly won by the renowned Gabriel Okara and Ezenwa Ohaeto in 2005. This is even when—not so long ago—he won the Logan Prize for Poetry, the Poetry Society of America’s Alice Fay Di Castagnola Award, The Chukwu Prize for Poetry, and the 2017 Brunel International African Poetry Prize. 

The expression on his face, beamed on a screen through Zoom from his Ames, Iowa, US base—thousands of kilometres away and a six-hour time difference from Lagos—to the distinguished audience that converged that Friday, October 14, evening at Eko Hotel and Suites, in Victoria Island, said much more than he could have expressed in words. Becoming the Nigeria Literature Prize’s latest laureate—arguably Africa’s most prestigious—is a big deal for the poet who bemoans his having lived all his life in the margins.

“I give thanks to the judges for finding Nomad worthy of the 2022 Nigeria Prize for Literature,” according to his post on his verified Twitter handle. This was not long after he was declared the winner by the Advisory Board Chairperson, Professor Akachi Ezeigbo, who was flanked by her board members, Professors Ahmed Yerima and Olu Obafemi, while NLNG’s Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Dr Philip Mshelbila, stood in the background.

What followed afterwards was unprecedented — as well as heart-warming and eye-watering— in the history of the prize. Oriogun offered a token from his $100,000 prize money, which he won with his poetry collection Nomad, to his co-shortlisted contestants Saddiq Dzukogi (Your Crib, My Qibla) and Su’eddie Vershima Agema (Memory and the Call of Waters), each of whom would receive $10,000! “I give thanks and congratulations (to) my brothers, Saddiq and Su’eddie, for their poetry and the many journeys ahead of us. And as agreed upon, I will be sending $20,000 out of the prize money to Saddiq and Su’eddie,” his tweet confirmed. 

Isn’t it all the more touching that Agema—who was present at the prize award ceremony and justifiably nourished the faint hope of winning the prize—was mandated by Oriogun himself to receive the plaque, which was presented by the former president, Olusegun Obasanjo, on his behalf? “We had agreed among us that whoever wins will actually give the other two USD$10,000 each, that whoever wins will reach out to the other two,” Agema confirmed. “It was in that spirit that I went to collect the prize on his behalf. So, there was no issue. We already had the agreement. As a matter of fact, we spoke yesterday and even before the event we were chatting, and even after the event, all of us still spoke generally. Even before the award, we were always talking on a daily basis on stuffs like that.”

Shunned and sometimes trolled for his unconventional sexual orientation, Oriogun cocoons himself through writing in his own world, which offers him an escape route and shield from the disapproving mob who would have none of his queerness. Should it, therefore, surprise anyone if he invests a substantial part of his prize money in the activity that he deems important to his existence?

Back to Nomad, his winning entry. It is his groundbreaking work he is proud of. He disclosed in an interview published in the NLNG in-house magazine that its language departs from everything that he has written so far. “It is a language of movement, the language of reckoning with the self, with history, with the future. It is a language that distorts what I have come to know as my poetic voice.”

Talking about his poetic voice, writing poems was his effort to make sense of his life’s apparent puzzles. He said in that same interview that it was his way of piecing together what he calls “fragments” of his life. After his sunny years of living a relatively comfortable life, the threads in his carpet of fate led him through dark periods of loneliness (after losing both parents), homelessness, working as a Federal Road Safety Corps marshall, and as a bartender in a brothel.

Like most people, he would have wondered – and is perhaps still wondering – why he had to go through all that experience. The experience of losing his father when he was just six years old and his mother shortly before his secondary school certificate exams must have been hard on his young, uncomprehending mind and must have left him reeling in bewilderment. “Poetry is the only place where I can ask myself that question, and then try to answer it for myself without trying to hear someone else’s voice,” he explained.

Oriogun was exposed to experiences earlier in his life that led him to search for his own answers without the dogmatic restrictions of his religious background. Hence, finding poetry as a secondary school student at Edokpolor Grammar School, thanks to his teacher, Mrs Uweni, became an important step towards making sense of his vicissitudes. Even so, this medium of expression continued to assume different meanings for him as he matured through his life experiences.

His passion for the literary genre has seen him emerge as a finalist for the Lambda Award for Poetry and The Future African Prize for Literature, receive fellowships and support from Ebedi International Writers Residency; PEN American; PEN Sweden; Harvard University; Hutchins Centre for African and African American Research; Oregon Institute for Creative Research; and the IIE-Artist Protection Fund. Only two years ago, in 2020, he received his MFA in creative writing from the Iowa Writers Workshop and is currently a postdoctoral research associate in Ames. 

Meanwhile, the organisers and sponsors of the Nigeria Literature Prize – which rotates annually between the four literary genres of prose fiction, poetry, drama, and children’s literature – deserve a pat on the back for sustaining “18 years of annual tournaments” that have so far attracted “over 1,851 entries in 16 competitions and produced 12 winning manuscripts since its commencement in 2004.”