Dr. Ogaga Ifowodo, the renown lawyer, poet, scholar and rights activist, will be a part of a panel discussion on “Biodun Jeyifo: Literary Guru and Activist” on Sunday, February 22, 2026.
The event will take place at 5 PM Nigerian time, 4 PM Ghana, 10 AM Austin, and 6 PM South Africa.
The web link to register is:
https://www.tfinterviews.com/post/jeyifo.
To join the Zoom meeting, click here:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89549041120
The man Ogaga Ifowodo
Dr. Ogaga Ifowodo is a lawyer, poet, scholar and rights activist. He obtained his LL.B from the University of Benin and was called to the Nigerian bar in 1991. After a decade of working in Nigeria’s premier human rights non-governmental human rights group, the Civil Liberties Organisation (CLO), he proceeded to the United States in 2001 to indulge his passion for writing and literature. He obtained a Master of Fine Art (MFA), an MA and a Ph.D from Cornell University, Ithaca, New York.
He is author of the scholarly study History, Trauma, and Healing in Postcolonial Narratives: Reconstructing Identities (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013).
He taught at Texas State University until 2014 when he returned to Nigeria.
He has published three prize-winning books of poetry: Homeland and Other Poems (winner of the 1993 ANA poetry prize); Madiba (winner of the 2003 ANA/Cadbury poetry prize); and The Oil Lamp (winner of the 2005 ANA/Gabriel Okara poetry prize). A Good Mourning, his poetic meditations on the June 12, 1993 electoral and political crisis in which he was a frontline participant, leading to his detention without trial for six months under the regime of General Abacha, and Augusta’s Poodle, a return to his earliest childhood, were nominated for the NLNG Nigeria Prize for Literature. His sixth collection, Why Does God Need a Gun?, reflections on creeds and the incredulous, will be released by Masobe Books in March 2026.
His poems have been widely published in several anthologies and literary journals across the world, among them, Voices from all Over: Poems with Notes and Activities, The Times Literary Supplement, Presence Africaine, Poetry International, The Massachusetts Review, Crazyhorse, Atlanta Review, Poems for a Century: An Anthology for Nigeria, and Migrations (an Afro-Italian anthology selected by Wole Soyinka for the Lagos Black Heritage Festival).
Ifowodo was named recipient of the PEN USA Barbara Goldsmith Freedom-to-Write Award and of the Poets of All Nations (Netherlands) “Free Word” Award. He is an honorary member of the PEN centres of the USA, Canada and Germany and a fellow of the Iowa Writing Programme.
Since 1988 when he made his debut in the op-ed pages of The Guardian, Ifowodo has maintained a steady presence in the newspapers and magazines. From 2012-16, he wrote a fortnightly column under the caption “For Crying Out LOUD!” for Vanguard newspaper. His essays are also published by the popular online platforms Sahara Reporters, Premium Times and Nigeria Village Square. He is currently on a leave of absence from writing the column but intends to publish a selection of his essays very soon.
In 2014, Ifowodo returned from his fourteen-year-stay in the United States. He immediately declared his intention to enter public service and be more directly involved in bringing about the change that the masses of the people pine for. He sought the ticket of the All Progressives Congress (APC) for a seat in the House of Representatives. He lost in the primary election, thus confirming British poet P. B. Shelley’s claim that poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world!
He is currently Principal Partner, Remedium Law Partners, an intellectual property rights and general legal practice firm.
