For the five finalists, the competition now moves to its final stage. The inaugural winner will be announced at NLNG’s Grand Award Night in October 2026 and will receive the $20,000 prize, becoming the first recipient of the Nigeria Prize for Creative Arts.
For the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the occasion represented recognition of an artist whose influence has extended well beyond the boundaries of her home country and musical genre. Producer Ana Martinez praised Kidjo’s ability to reach audiences across generations and continents.
Osvalde Lewat's prize-winning novel is about friendship, political violence and complicity. More interestingly, it is about the comfortable lies people tell themselves when somebody else is paying the price.
Teni takes on the role of a musical therapist, offering advice on love, money, hard work and mortality in an EP that favours earnestness over easy answers.
Pemi Aguda’s debut novel turns Lagos’s transformation into a source of supernatural dread, bringing together motherhood, urban development and folklore. Its atmosphere is often striking, but its ambitious ideas are not always matched by equally developed characters or a satisfying resolution.
In Mayowa and the Fire of Speech, the second book in her imaginative trilogy, an eleven-year-old Mayowa travels to Nigeria and discovers an ancient Yoruba art in which spoken words can shape reality.
Beauty in Black Season 2 is messy, excessive and often repetitive, but its wild twists and betrayals still make it hard to look away.
In her new novel, Chika Unigwe places a woman who once gave up her baby at the centre of a wider examination of motherhood, shame, poverty and the choices women are forced to make when society offers them no good options.
Obinna Udenwe sets out to bring Abakaliki history, culture and tradition into Nigerian fiction. Years of Shame has a compelling subject, but its rushed plot, thin characterisation and loose editing often get in the way of the story he wants to tell.
Niyi Akinmolayan’s Colours of Fire takes Nollywood into a world of rival tribes, magic, warriors, and mythical creatures. Its costumes, production design, and performances stand out, but the film’s crowded story and uneven visual effects often get in the way of its ideas.
Oyinkan Braithwaite’s latest novel uses a supernatural inheritance to examine marriage, female desire, family trauma and the stories women inherit about themselves.
Darkoo continues her reintegration into Nigeria’s music scene on $exy Girl $ummer (Vol. 1), a compact project built around sex, romance and self-assurance. With Rema, Davido, Victony and others on board, she shows flashes of sonic confidence, even when her guests sometimes leave the stronger impression.