Chevron Nigeria Limited, a multi-national oil company, has withdrawn its sponsorship of one of the annual literary prizes of the Association of Nigerian Authors, ANA.
The company had recently informed ANA in a letter that it could not continue to fund the ANA/Chevron Prose Prize for Environmental Writing citing the current economic recession in the country as the reason for its action.
The news was broken a few days ago in a message posted on Facebook by the current President of the association, Mallam Denja Abdullahi, who had initially set out to announce the redemption of the prize money won by Jonah Agunwamba and May Ifeoma Nwoye, authors of the winning novels for the 2011 and 2014 editions of the award, titled The Poacher’s Daughter and Oil Cemetery, respectively.
Abdullahi wrote that the current national executive council of ANA, in line with its resolve to ensure due diligence in the affairs of the association, was recently able to re-establish the relationship between the writers’ body and Chevron. The result, he added, was the redemption of the prize money for the category, valued at $2,000 and won by Agunwamba and Nwoye in 2011 and 2014.
The ANA helmsman also noted that Chevron Nigeria Limited had been funding the literary prize, which was last advertised in 2014, since 2001 and the company had in 2006 and 2007 sponsored workshops on writing and the environment for members of ANA besides other forms of assistance that it rendered to the association.
Abdullahi however thanked the company and hoped that other multi-national companies will show interest.
