United Nigeria Airlines has pledged N20 million to sponsor the prestigious annual Chinua Achebe Prize for Fiction, administered by the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) for the next 10 years.

The sponsorship deal was disclosed today by the executive chairman of the airline, Professor Obiora Okonkwo, following a discussion with the ANA President, Dr. Usman Akanbi.

Under the arrangement, the airline will provide N2 million every year for the next 10 years to ANA, bringing the total sponsorship to N20 million, a commitment the association says would guarantee the continuation of the prize regardless of the change in the state government.

The yearly award which was initiated by the Anambra State government in 2021 in conjunction with the ANA leadership, has faced financial constraints in the last three years following the failure of the present state administration to continue its sponsorship.

Though the Governor Willie Obiano administration began the sponsorship with one million naira, the Governor Chukwuma Soludo administration that succeeded it in 2022 continued the sponsorship and agreed to ANA’s request to double it in consideration of inflation and administrative costs like payments to judges.

However, after two years, the organisers say the state government appears to have lost interest in continuing with the sponsorship despite several letters reminding it of its promise.

The apparent lack of commitment caused United Nigeria Airlines to intervene and rescue the prize from uncertainty.

Announcing the airline's decision to step in, Dr. Akanbi quoted Prof Okonkwo as saying: "Prof Achebe is too precious in our consciousness for the award to continue to suffer the current epileptic funding."

Speaking on why the airline made the decision to take over the sponsorship, Prof. Okonkwo said that Achebe's legacy demands this level of commitment.

"Very few men and women of letters and culture in recent history", he stated, "have brought as much attention and honour to the black race and the African world as the great Achebe through his writings, lectures, speeches, intellectual activism, ethical conduct, and intermittent interventions in political affairs which has made him an authentic conscience of the Nigerian people.

Reacting to the sponsorship, the ANA president, who is a senior academic at the University of Ilorin in Kwara State, said: “We are immensely grateful to Prof. Okonkwo and his airline for their patriotic intervention. Prof was not just a world-class raconteur and essayist, but also the ANA founder who started our association in 1981 at the University of Nigeria at Nsukka and accepted to serve as its first president, thus giving it the credibility and platform that has made the association highly respected beyond Nigeria's shores."

Akanbi also highlighted Okonkwo's consistent record of honouring Achebe, stating that Prof. Okonkwo has for some been hard to preserve the late author's legacy.

For instance, he was solely responsible for financing the erection of a statue of the late Prof. Achebe which was unveiled in July by Governor Chukwuma Soludo of Anambra State at the Ugwunwasike Roundabout in Ogidi, Idemili North Local Government Area, Achebe's own hometown.

The prize sponsorship is the latest effort made by Prof. Okonkwo and United Nigeria Airlines to cement Achebe's legacy.

In June, one of the two Boeing 737-800NG aircraft purchased by United Nigeria Airlines was named after the late author, while the other was named after His Royal Majesty, Igwe Nnaemeka Achebe, the Obi of Onitsha.

Naming these two aircraft after both men is in line with Prof. Okonkwo's determination to uphold their values.

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