..walked home with $2,500

By Japhet Alakam

As part of its commitment to promoting excellence in the arts and in celebrating great writers, Cadbury Nigeria Plc sponsors of Cadbury / ANA Poetry Prize last week at its corporate office at Agidingbi, Ikeja presented the new upgraded prize of USD2,500.00 to the multiple award winning writer, Professor Akachi Ezeigbo of the University of Lagos for winning the 2009 Cadbury / ANA Poetry Prize.

The winning book titled: Heart Song is a collection of poems that portray different aspects of our society in a careful, well thought out and descriptive marriage of literary criticism and creative writing. With this, Prof Ezeigbo who is the first woman to win this prize also became the first person to go home with the newly introduced poetry prize money of USD2,500.00 which was announced by the management of the company. She was supposed to have gone home with old prize of USD1000.00 .

The event which was attended by literary scholars, ANA members, teachers and students from University of Lagos, friends and relatives of the recipient also witnessed some poetry renditions from members of Association of Nigerian Authors, ANA and a dramatic performance of three of the poems from the winning book by Bunmi Anana, a 300 level English student of University of Lagos.

In his welcome address, Kufre Ekanem, Corporate Affairs Manager of Cadbury thanked all who came to celebrate the great writer and poet, Professor Akachi Ezeigbo for winning the 2009 Cadbury / ANA Poetry Prize. He went on to extol the qualities of Prof. Ezeigbo as not only an author but a woman of many accomplished parts. According to him, “she is a teacher, lecturer, writer, novelist, critic, essayist, singer, administrator, journalist and above all, a successful homebuilder and someone who has brought great repute, to herself, her family, the literary and poetry community as well as, the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA).”

Continuing, he added that he company appreciates the excellence and diligence the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) has shown in managing the Award over the years and promised to work more closely with the Association to upscale the program for the Cadbury/ANA Poetry prize. And based on earlier call for reviews ,he announced some changes that brought smiles to the ANA members and the literary community.

Kufre stated that, henceforth there will be a travel subvention of N50, 000.00 for the winner to Cadbury for the prize presentation ceremony if the winner resides outside Lagos. And if the winner is based in Lagos, the travel subsidy will be given to the publishing company of the winning collection. The administrative support fee for the Association of Nigerian Authors was·doubled from N50, 000.00 to N100, 000.00 yearly. While the monetary value of the Cadbury/ANA Poetry prize was increased from the current figure of USD 1,000.00 to USD 2, 500.00.

He went on to say that Cadbury Nigeria Plc is part of the global Kraft Foods family, whose core purpose is to make today delicious and the Cadbury/ANA Poetry Competition complement other corporate social responsibility initiatives of the company.

Prof. Akachi Ezeigbo who had earlier read two poems , one in pidgin that talked about her painful experiences in London and Womanbeings, a poem that celebrates the politics between men and women from the winning book thanked all who came to celebrate with her and gave a special thanks to Cadbury for the largesse. According to her “ I was expecting to go home with USD 1,000.00 but now I am going with USD 2, 500.00.”

She stated that “Cadbury has been the most faithful of all our supporters and I urge other corporate bodies to follow their footsteps.” According to her, winning a prize is not everything but it does something good for the winner to show that she has done something and described the prize as a gesture that will inspire poets in Nigeria.
She also thanked ANA for their roles in supporting Nigerian writers and her husband, Prof. Christian Ezeigbo for his supportive roles. She also used the occasion to urge husbands and wives to support each other.

Prof. Sunday Ododo who represented the ANA President, Prof. Jerry Agada described the day as a great day for Nigerian writers. He stated that the award is the longest surviving award and described the marriage of ANA and Cadbury as a way of taking literary culture to the next level.