The 2024 Eugenia Abu/Sevhage International Prize for Creative Non-Fiction

“With these skill sets, I began my column writing life in my church newspaper, the Good Shepherd, the newspaper of the Abuja Archdiocese.”

As a columnist and a lifestyle writer, nothing could be more profound and humbling than the naming of a creative, non-fiction prize in my name. I am deeply honoured by the Sevhage publishers’ decision to make me a proud bearer of their creative non-fiction prize. It is totally inspiring. I am also deeply grateful to the sponsors of the prize, ALINEA Initiative, Dr Victor Oladokun, and other anonymous donors who have beefed up the prize. But even more so, to the award-winning poet and author Sueddie Agema, who is behind Sevhage Publishing and has together with his team so decided. It is difficult to find the words to thank them for this honour.

Read also: SEVHAGE, Alinea Initiatives launch non-fiction prize to honour Eugenia Abu

I really did start most of my writing, as I have always said in many past interviews, in fiction. At seven years of age, my creative juices had kicked in, and I was drawing stick men and women with cartoon-like conversations by their mouths with incredible two-paragraph narratives beneath it. My sole audience was my dad, the well-respected Mr Alfred Amodu, educator, teacher, and public servant who rose to the top of his career as permanent secretary in Benue State and chairman of several boards in Kogi State and across the nation. My dad, an alumni of Oxford University in the UK and Ohio University in the United States, was suitably qualified to raise this daughter of his, whose major interest was scribbling. With two masters degrees in educational psychology and curriculum development, my dad patiently listened to me as I told him tall tales from my imagination and scribbled into my stories, new characters nearly every week. Mr Amodu would place plain sheets in their dollops around the house and allow me to: “waste” them as I deemed fit.

He was inadvertently fuelling my creativity. And over the years he watched me flower, becoming a feature writer in The Guardian newspapers, sharing space with greats: Nobel laureate Professor Wole Soyinka, award-winning broadcaster and writer Eddie Iroh, leading activist Edwin Madunagu, Editor par- excellence Ama Ogan, world-renowned virologist Professor Oyewole Tomori, Onukaba Adinoyi Ojo, Editor of The African Guardian Sully Abu, Former MD Daily Times, Yemi Ogunbiyi, and former MD of the Guardian Eluem Emeka Izeze, among several others. Those were heady days when my articles were appearing in the de facto newspaper of all times, The Guardian, known for redefining print journalism in Nigeria.

Mr Amodu listened attentively to his precocious 7-year-old as she told him tons of stories and even asked questions about the various characters when he returned home after work. Although he was no longer with us when my first book, In the blink of an eye, collection of my Guardian features, was published, he did bask in the pride of my broadcasting and my writings in the Guardian.

As I began to put together my essays, I felt his presence in the process and dedicated the book to my loving father. A genius of a dad who knew how to direct his daughters creative energy, this creative, non-fiction prize in my honour is therefore dedicated to this towering man, Mr Alfred Yenisa Amodu, popularly known as A. Y., who was my beloved father.

But my forte over the years became creative nonfiction. I became adept at capturing things as they happened with the laser-sharp eyes of a detective and had incredible attention to detail. My news background could have contributed to this, but fiction also never left my side, and I could use my keen imagination to tell a nonfiction story with great description and add many side stories that would often be missed. With these skill sets, I began my column writing life in my church newspaper, the Good Shepherd, the newspaper of the Abuja Archdiocese. My column titled A Walk in the Park was very well received and is now set to become a book. Afterwards, I wrote columns for the MTN in-house magazine Y’ello and held down a weekly column for Sunday Trust on books titled Five Favourite Books with Eugenia for a decade.

Today, I am a columnist for BusinessDay and have held down Tales from the Main Road for over a decade and counting. I have truly been blessed by my writing, and soon enough, there will be a travelogue, a cookery book, and many other nonfiction titles by his grace. But fiction still calls my name, and I am still warehousing my many fictional pieces and a children’s collection. I am also gathering my poetry pieces written over the last 10 years to follow the critically acclaimed poetry collection. Don’t look at me like that.

So my fellow nonfiction writers, please gather here. It is time to enter that piece under your bed, on your desk, gathering dust. I can’t wait to hear who has taken this Eugenia Abu/Sevhage 2024 international creative non-fiction prize, which is worth N750,000. Gather. The time is now!