Princess Shiloh Owolabi and Salami Olatunji Yusuf have emerged winners of the 2026 ARA Aderinoye Literary Prize in the Kwaran and Non-Kwaran categories, respectively, following the announcement of the results at the grand finale of the Kwara Campus Poetry Championship (KCPC).
Owolabi won the Kwaran category with her poem, We Rise on the Same Soil, while Yusuf clinched the Non-Kwaran category with The Throne and the Anvil. The winners were announced on Saturday, 24 October, at the Ilorin Innovation Hub, GRA, Ilorin, Kwara State.
The literary prize, instituted to recognise emerging poetic voices and encourage creative engagement with gender relations, social responsibility and shared nation building, attracted more than 70 entries, according to the organisers’ earlier announcement.
The shortlisted works reflected the competition’s thematic concerns, bringing together poems exploring questions of national identity, shared responsibility, gender relations and the social realities that shape collective life.
In the Kwaran category, the other shortlisted entries were The Nation We Owe Each Other by Olaniyi Aishat Omolara, Water and Wings by Anthonia Zibiri, and The Land Still Wait by Opeyemi Aweda.
The other shortlisted poets in the Non-Kwaran category were Mustafa Linda, whose entry was titled A Woman’s World; Mark Ighile, with Toast to the Melody of a Shared Destiny; and Gbajumo Zeanulabideen, with Gender Relations.
The entries were assessed by a three-member panel comprising Dr Oluwatosin John Ibitoye, Mr AbdulHafeez T. Oyewole, Secretary of the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA), Kwara Chapter, and Mr Temitope John.
The prize forms part of the wider KCPC initiative, which seeks to discover and nurture young literary talents while promoting poetry as a vehicle for intellectual engagement, civic consciousness and social transformation.
