Eze’s ‘Unbind Me Now’ Turns Nigeria’s Pain Into Poetry

Poet James Ngwu Eze says his new collection, Unbind Me Now, confronts the fear, violence and economic hardship shaping everyday life in Nigeria. The book is one of three finalists for the 2026 Nigeria Prize for Literature, selected from 223 submissions, with the winner set to receive $100,000. Eze says the collection is a call for outrage, not violence. Through poems on insecurity, displacement, migration and national trauma, he urges Nigerians to rise above ethnic and religious divisions and work towards a safer country. The 160-page collection also explores environmental loss, including erosion, threatened ancestral homes and damaged rivers. Beneath its anger, the poet says the work holds on to hope that Nigeria can still offer its children a better future.

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