Every dog has his day, not the least, a scribbler. A writer's day may come either in form of snowballing audience, fat royalties or ratcheting acclaims. But, amid many woes buffeting the Nigerian book industry, nothing beats great honours when it comes with rare fat wallet. Every NLNG laureate is destined to wear endless smiles.

The race for the new NLNG laureate has just teed off. Later this year, the winner of the $100,000 The Nigeria Prize for Literature will emerge. Last Thursday, at the Eko Hotel & Suites, Laos, the prize organisers, NLNG, together with the Advisory Board, handed over the 109 entries received for this year's prize, meant for children's literature. Hitherto, the annual prize had rotated among other genres: prose, poetry and drama.

Kudo Eresia-Eke, NLNG's General Manager, External Relations, while commenting on this year's entries, confirmed: "We have received a hundred and nine books as submissions by Nigerian authors to compete for this year's prize in children's literature. I can only wish all the authors vying for honour every success and the best outcome possible in the exercise."

As usual, the works will be judged by a panel of judges, comprising eminent literary scholars, whose decisions and reviews will be overseen by the Advisory Board headed by Emeritus Professor Ayo Banjo, with Professor Ben Elugbe and Dr. Jerry Agada as members.

An entirely new set of judges has been constituted this year. To be headed by Professor Uwemedimo Enobong Iwetok of the University of Jos, Plateau State, other members are Professor Charles Bodunde of the University of Ilorin, Kwara State, and the Dr. Razinat Mohammed of the University of Maiduguri, Borno State.

Unlike in the past, when the international consultant had come from other African countries, Kimberly Reynolds, a professor of children's literature at Newcastle University, UK, and past president of the International Research Society for Children's Literature, will serve as the 2015 international consultant.

Entries, informed the prize organisers, will be examined based on many factors, some of which include editorial excellence, creativity, social relevance and plot contents. The winner of this year's prize will be announced in October to coincide with the date NLNG shipped its first liquefied natural gas cargo.

Since the NLNG Prize debuted in 2004, it has produced a winner in children's literature category and one joint winner, too. While the 2007 prize was jointly won by Mabel Segun and Professor Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo with Readers' Theatre and My Cousin Sammy respectively, the 2011 prize was won by Adeleke Adeyemi, author of The Missing Clock.

The Literary Criticism Award will also be awarded alongside the children's literature prize. Introduced in 2012, the literary criticism award goes with a monetary value of N1 million. This year, only a single entry was received.

While the Science Prize has been rested for now, the multinational gas company has continued its educational support. Eresia-Eke, Manager, External Relations, informed the company, in March, 2014, publicly announced a N2 billion University Support Programme (USP). As part of its support to teaching, research and capacity building, under its corporate responsibility initiative, it is currently sponsoring the building and equipment of engineering laboratories in six universities across Nigeria's geopolitical zones.

Though the essence of the prize was to reward Nigerian writers, Eresia-Eke hinted that the judges should have it at the back of their minds that, in the drive for excellence, mediocrity should not be rewarded, which was why, on two occasions, no prize was awarded to any winner due to shoddy entries submitted.

Chairman of the Advisory Board, Emeritus Professor Banjo, speaking on the prize, commended NLNG for instituting it and seeing it grow. He reasoned that perhaps children's literature was not as developed as other genres, which explained the fewer number of entries received for the 2015 prize.

The former Vice Chancellor of the University of Ibadan, who expressed delight at the quality of work done by its previous panel of judges, said the assessments of the external judges had equally tallied with those of the NLNG panel of judges.

Explaining while the literature prize has more monetary value than the literary criticism prize, he said the NLNG prize was basically meant to encourage creativity, but decided to create a complementary prize for Nigerian literary critics as a way of encouraging them in their academic work.

Those hoping that runners-up would be start receiving consolatory prizes henceforth got no cheery news from the Advisory Board, who affirmed that the winner-takes-all nature of the prize would remain in order not to "water down the quality of the prize," adding, "we shall maintain the prize money in order not to lower the quality of the prize."

Another member of the Advisory Board, Professor Ben Elugbe, explained that, to arrive at the winner each year, the judges usually reduce the submissions, first, to 50, later to 25, after which a longlist of 11 will emerge, from which the final shortlist of 3 will be selected.

The issue of what constitutes children's literature echoed at the meeting, with the Advisory Board explaining that children's literature, going by the entries received, has to do with creative writings meant for primary and secondary schools. Professor Banjo stressed that emphasis should be place on the moral development of the child. Dr. Jerry Agada explained that it was no difficulty selecting the panel of judges for this year's prize, as it had been a tradition to select quality judges every year.

Handing over this year's submission to the panel of judges, Eresia-Eke and Prof. Banjo urged the scholars to be thorough in their job, which prompted the Chairperson of the panel of judges, Prof. Iwetok, to assure that the competence reposed in them would be sustained.

The day before, the media team of the NLNG, comprising Tony Okenedo, Manager, Communications and Public Affairs; Anne-Marie Plamer Ikuku, Head, Media Relations; and Elkana Shawai, Senior Information Officer, met with Nigerian arts journalists at the Protea Hotel, Ikeja, to update them on the prize. Mr, Okenedo, who thanked them for supporting the prize, said NLNG was excited that the prize had led to a new generation of writers coming up.

Leaving a legacy in the Nigerian literary space, our children will be proud of, he echoed, "is one of the visions of the NLNG Prize". He assured of an exciting book tour of the winning entry this year. For Nigerian writers, it is another season of bliss, no doubt.