On October 10, 2008, debut novelist Kaine Agary emerged winner of the fifth NLNG Prize for Literature for her book, Yellow Yellow.
The event, held at the MUSON Centre in Lagos, was attended by a slew of dignitaries. ‘Dignitary' in the Nigerian sense almost always means the movers and shakers of the political class; and so in this case we had former President of Nigeria's Second Republic, Shehu Shagari, who looked exactly as he did back then, only greyer. Senate President David Mark kept a straight face as the comperes of the occasion read out his biography for tediously long minutes, right down to his hobbies - ahead of his speech - as he perfectly expected them to. No one told the Senate President he was coming to a literary award presumably, for he gave the same old speech, about the Senate's deliberations on constitutional reform - not a mention of a writer or a book.
Senator Chris Anyanwu - despite being a famed broadcaster and author not to mention a statuesque beauty over 50 - might have gone unmentioned. Thankfully for her, she had the good sense to have become a politician in the interim; and so in time honoured Nigerian tradition, she got mentioned in full observance of the so called ‘protocols'.
Ndubuisi Kanu didn't like his seat and left within five minutes (who do they think I am? he must have asked himself). Asimini William Dapa-Pepple III, the King of Bonny, came with a lot of bling. We know - thanks to the ever helpful protocols - that Transport Minister Diezani Allison-Madueke was there, but she was invisible in the throng of dignitaries. Nigeria's once Interim leader (of the oft derided ‘Fidihe' government in Yoruba popular lore) Chief Ernest Shonekan was seated... Special guest was former head of state, Yakubu Gowon; he never showed.
A true literary great, octogenarian Gabriel Okara, author of the classic The Voice was in the audience - and went unmentioned. Okara got to have his day when the winner was announced (Agary had been in the running with Jude Dibia, shortlisted for his second novel, Unbridled) and the old man, himself a Niger Deltan, got to embrace and do an impromtu lap of honour with Agary, who won for a Niger Delta novel. Some might have noted that she won for a story on the Niger Delta experience (an experience not unconnected with environmental degradation) from an energy company. The rest, quite frankly, is literature.