It was a celebration galore of writers, critics, literary artists and performers in Makurdi, Nigeria, at the weekend when Mr. Bizuum Yadok, in a blaze of glory, received the much-coveted *E. E. Sule/ SEVHAGE Prize for African Literary Criticism* worth N285,000 during this year’s fifth edition of the Benue Books and Arts Festival and its second essay competition. Yadok’s essay, “In Defense of _Leoparditude_” came tops in the competition among the 48 competing literary essays from six (6) countries namely Nigeria, Kenya, Ireland, South Africa, Uganda and Zimbabawe. The event was made more colorful with the grand presence of both Professor Al-Bishak, the propounder of the _Leoparditude_ literary theory, and Professor Iorwuese Harry Hagher, the keynote presenter at the festival, whose corpus of progressive, ideological literary works had inspired the _Leoparditude_ theory in 2000.
Yadok was handed over the award by a special guest at the occasion, Prof. Dul Johnson of Bingham University, Auta-Balefi, Nigeria, himself a multiple award-winning creative writer and film maker, in the presence of the award organizers led by Mr Su’eddie Agema. The essay competition held last year, and is named after Professor E. E. Sule, a Commonwealth award-winning creative writer, and SEVHAGE, a Makurdi-based publisher, owned by Mr. Agema, also a literary award-winner.
Yadok is an academic staffer of the Department of English and Literary Studies, Federal University of Education, Pankshin, Plateau State, Nigeria, and a doctorate degree student at Federal University of Lafia, Nasarawa State, Nigeria, who has been under the mentorship of Prof. Al-Bishak. His entry is an adroit adoption of _Leoparditude_ literary theory to critique Dike Chukwumerije’s performance poetry, “Nna Anyi, Is It True?”, dedicated to the memory of the global literary legend, Prof. Chinua Achebe.
In a statement last year, the award organisers said that Yadok’s “work interrogates its aesthetics, style, content, and tone while anchoring these within the _Leoparditude_ theory propounded by Prof. Al-Bishak. Combining oral and written literary traditions, this brilliant critique advances African literary scholarship. A deserving winner”!
The award marks a watershed in the affirmation of indigenous African theories and especially the flourishing acknowledgement of Al-Bishak’s literary theory meant as an ideal window for proper assessment of African literature. Earlier in 2024 Yadok’s analytical use of _Leoparditude_ in a conference paper headlined the international conference on indigenous African theories jointly organised by the University of Exeter, England, and University of Lagos, Nigeria.