The Nigeria LNG Limited (NLNG) has announced that it will discontinue The Nigeria Prize for Literary Criticism and replace it with a new category called The Nigeria Prize for Creative Arts.
NLNG Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Philip Mshelbila, made the announcement on Friday during the NLNG Grand Award Night in Lagos, where Oyin Olugbile was named winner of the 2025 Nigeria Prize for Literature for her novel Sanya.
According to Mshelbila, the new category will focus on documentary film and will be open to filmmakers between the ages of 18 and 35.
He said the decision was part of NLNG’s effort to expand its support for the creative industry and inspire a new generation of Nigerian storytellers.
“The Nigeria Prize for Creative Arts will encourage young creators to inform, challenge, and connect Nigerians more deeply to who they are as a nation and who they can become,” he said.
The new category joins the company’s long-running Nigeria Prize for Literature and Nigeria Prize for Science, which have grown into some of the most prestigious awards on the continent.
Mshelbila added that while the Prize for Literary Criticism had played an important role in promoting critical engagement with African literature, NLNG believed it was time to explore new ways of nurturing creativity and national expression.
The announcement added a new layer of excitement to an evening that also celebrated literary excellence. Oyin Olugbile won the 2025 Nigeria Prize for Literature, valued at $100,000, for her novel Sanya, which reimagines Yoruba mythology in a fresh and daring way.
There was, however, no winner for The Nigeria Prize for Science this year, as the judges found no entry deserving of the award.
The 2025 Nigeria Prize for Literary Criticism, which will be the last, was won by Okwudiri Anasiudu for his essays Afropolitan Identity and Afrodiasporic Otherness in Selected African Novels, Allegorical Conjectures in Helon Habila’s Measuring Time, and Mimetic Designs in Helon Habila’s Oil on Water.
