Disappointment trails non-award of Etisalat Flash Fiction Prize

The Etisalat Flash Fiction Prize is an annual writing competition established by the telecom giant, Etisalat, to encourage upcoming African writers of unpublished short stories. Entries for the2016 flash fiction award commenced on  1st September, 2016 and ended October 14th, 2016.  An online voting platform was set up for the public to vote and this […]

The Etisalat Flash Fiction Prize is an annual writing competition established by the telecom giant, Etisalat, to encourage upcoming African writers of unpublished short stories.

Entries for the2016 flash fiction award commenced on  1st September, 2016 and ended October 14th, 2016. 

An online voting platform was set up for the public to vote and this was done to publicize the award and to know the publics’ thoughts about the contestants’ works, according to prize administrators. 

Voting commenced November 7 and closed December 3, 2016 for the award. With a cash prize of £1,000 and a high end device at stake, there was no doubt a lot a emerging writers were desperate to win the prize and soon enough, jostling for votes commenced on social media platforms.

The early excitement had Etisalat buzzing with the company’s Head, Events and Sponsorship, Modupe Thani saying they were excited by the way the year’s edition had brought together writers and lovers of short stories across Africa. 

“We feel elated that Etisalat has continued to provide platforms for African people to express their creativity and to celebrate our icons. With the interest and followership already generated by the Etisalat Flash Fiction Award, this stage is certainly getting more intense as we anxiously await the list of the three finalists to be chosen by the judges,” she said.

However, the voting process was marred by technical hitches. The site kept crashing and some of the stories entered for the prize fell off the grid completely. This caused a lot of anxiety among entrants who kept calling on the prize administrators to take measures to correct the issues.

Eventually, the prize waded through to the next stage with the 50 stories with the highest votes forwarded to the panel of judges headed by Abubakar Adam Ibrahim (Nigeria), with Ndinda Kioko (Kenya) Odafe Atogun (Nigeria) and Zimbabwean novelist Tendai Huchu also on the panel. 

After weeks of reading and deliberation, the judges, initially scheduled to announce the shortlist of three for the grand finale in Lagos in March reached a decision.

Their decision was announced by Etisalat via a twitter post last week.

“The Judging Panel for the 2016 Etisalat Flash Fiction Award regrets to announce that the Flash Fiction Prize will not have a winner and runners up this year as none of the entries met the criteria of quality and creativity required to win the award.” 

This generated several reactions from the public as they expressed anger and disappointment through the social media platforms. Most people were of the opinion that the idea of voting was not the ideal option because not everyone can be a judge of a literary piece and also, if based on voting, those with higher number of friends and mere likes could be possible winners. 

A twitter user @AkanjiTheo who tweeted  in response to the Etisalat post said “WakeUp! And organise a proper literature competition and stop wasting the time of young budding nigerian wannabe authors”

Writers who entered the competition are disappointed as they had expectations of winning the prize.

“After making us wait endlessly for the announcement, they successfully made us look like a bunch of untalented clowns. Well played. They don’t realize how much time and energy we went into the whole process of canvassing for votes.”

 These were the words of Alex Kadiri, a writer whose story was ranked among the top 50 of the flash fiction competition. 

Another writer Bura-Bari Nwilo, one of those who submitted an entry for the Etisalat flash fiction prize but was not longlisted, said, “I think that it is sad that Etisalat creates whatever ditch they are in. You shouldn’t make literature a popularity contest. When you do, you give room to folks with very great social media followership, folks who may not be good, to win. And such win has no prestige and I guess that’s what happened. But they owe us. They owe people like me an apology. My story, though written on the spot, was fair and I put in a lot of energy in to it,” he said. 

Speaking with Ademule David, whose work was also submitted for the prize, he said  “I am completely disappointed,  not because the flash fiction prize was cancelled but because the panel of judges insulted the entire generation of young Nigerian writers. The organizers embarrassed  us, everyone of us. At least a winner ought to have been named even if there would be no runner up. The idea of voting to select top 50 is even flawed. It turns the whole competition to Project Fame West Africa. Next time, the competition would witness strong writers’ apathy if the processes of announcing or selecting winners are not reviewed.”

Days after Etisalat’s Tweet, the company issued a statement about the outcome in which it said the  decision not to award the prize this year was reached by the four-member panel after a thorough review of the entries, when it was unanimously concluded that none of the entrires received met the criteria of literary quality and excellence.

“Having read through the submissions, all the judges were disappointed with the quality of the stories. When we came together to deliberate on a potential shortlist, the discussions veered into whether or not there was any merit in actually having a shortlist. Despite the competition being for entry-level writers, mediocrity should not be celebrated since Etisalat, as a company, is committed to the pursuit of excellence, as we the judges are,” the statement quoted Abubakar Adam Ibrahim, Chair of Judges, as saying.

He also added that, “Whereas the quality of stories that made the long list are largely disappointing, we also must add that the process by which this long list is arrived at must be reassessed to improve the overall quality of the award going forward. We have made our recommendations and we hope that both Etisalat and the writers will take the time to re-strategize.”

Commenting on the decision, Director, Brands and Experience, Etisalat Nigeria, Elvis Ogiemwanye, saluted the judges for their courage and boldness in upholding the key values of creativity, quality, excellence and integrity that are the hallmarks of the Etisalat Prize for Literature initiative. 

“We concur with the final decision of the judges not to award the 2016 Etisalat Flash Fiction Award to any winner based on their honest review of all the entries that were received. The judges are eminent persons and we are satisfied that they did what was needful to preserve the integrity of the Etisalat Prize for Literature as a flagship of a pan-African literary prize, by not compromising excellence,” he said.

It should be noted that this is not the first time that winners have not been named for reputable literary prizes. The NLNG Nigeria Prize for Literature was not awarded in 2009 or 2015, on similar grounds. Furthermore, in 2012, the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction was also not awarded for the same reasons.

Modupe OjuolapeKuti won the 2015 edition of the award for her short story ‘Gone’ whileJacqueline Uche Agweh and John Chidi, the two runners-up, were honoured for their stories, “Invincible” and “Madness in Degrees” respectively.