Ikeogu Oke, Winner of a Nigerian Literary Award in 2017.
BUHARI CONGRATULATES 2017 WINNERS OF NIGERIAN LITERARY, SCIENCE AWARDS
Also Read: In Nigeria, Journalists Double as Literary Laureates
Nigeria’s President, Muhammadu Buhari has congratulated winners of 2017 literary and science awards in Nigeria.
They include Ikeogu Oke, who won the 2017 edition of the Nigeria Liquified and Natural Gas (NLNG) Award for literature, Poetry category with his poetry collection, “The Heresiad’’.
A statement by the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Femi Adeshina said the President also felicitated with the winners of the science prize whose revolutionary work in reducing the spread and management of malaria, he said, will continue to inspire other researchers on the possibility of living without the ailment in the future.
“President Buhari extols the efforts of Ikeoluwapo Ajayi, Ayodele Jegede & Bidemi Yusuf on “Improving Home and Community Management of Malaria: Providing the Evidence Base” and the “Multifaceted Efforts at Malaria Control in Research: Management of Malaria of Various Grades and Mapping Artemisinin Resistance” by Olugbenga Mokuolu.
“The President congratulates Chukwuma Agubata for his research on “Novel lipid microparticles for effective delivery of Artemether antimalarial drug using a locally-sourced Irvingia fat from nuts of Irvingia gabonensis var excelsa (ogbono).”
“President Buhari commends the Nigerian Liquefied Gas company for the sponsorship and the Advisory Board for the diligent work of showcasing the country’s hardworking and talented individuals every year”, said the statement.
Adeshina also said President Buhari commended Oke’s passion and commitment to lifting the genre of poetry in Nigeria; an art, he said, many shy away from due to required discipline and focus; reflective thinking and unique style of writing.
For two years consecutively: 2016 and 2017, the NLNG prize for Nigerian creative writers have gone to journalists.
The products of the prize have demonstrated capacities to defend the title in the mix of other laureates across the globe.
The prize is prestigious in all ramifications: a huge amount of money— $100, 000— is attached to it; and it is one of the most keenly contested literary prizes in Africa and probably in the world.
In 2016, Abubakar Adam Ibrahim, an Arts reporter of a Nigerian daily, Daily Trust, won the prize with his Prose Fiction, Season of Crimson Blossoms, beating other 172 authors who submitted entries for the prize.
In 2017, Ikeogu Oke, who was the Standards Editor and Deputy Editor (Arts and Culture) at the now rested Nigerian newspaper, NEXT, won the prize with his poetry collection, The Heresiad. Ikeogu Oke’s collection of poems beat other 183 entries received for the competition.
Also READ In Nigeria, Journalists Double as Literary Laureates