Following our vibrant October session on The 7 Habits, the Naija Book Club is thrilled to share an exclusive conversation with acclaimed Nigerian author Ugochukwu Ugonna. Known for his keen socio-political observations, Ugonna recently joined our community to discuss his craft and the intricate themes behind his latest release, Festival of Bribes.
Balancing a demanding career with his writing, Ugonna brings a deeply analytical lens to the Nigerian experience. In this interview, we explore the mechanics of his creative process, the danger of a “single story” in Lagos relationship dynamics, and the striking 2023 voter apathy that fueled his newest political narrative.
Naija Book Club: What books are currently on your nightstand?
Ugochukwu Ugonna: Retrospect (by Onyekachi Eseagwu), The Marriage Class (by Adesuwa O’Man Nwokedi), Mastery (by Robert Greene). I’d mention 3 of them for very different reasons. (1) RETROSPECT by Onyekachi Eseagwu: It’s a Christian book that reminds me that a lot of what may be happening currently may not make sense in the moment, but looking back, you will always see the hand of God in all of it. (2) ‘The Marriage Class’ by Adesuwa O’man Nwokedi. I like how it honestly explores couples struggling, and how the author keeps us guessing what happens next. (3) ‘Mastery’ by Robert Greene, which makes the case that true mastery of a skill or field is the ultimate form of power a person can hold.
Naija Book Club: What other books have you authored?
Ugochukwu Ugonna: The Seat of Mess (2010), Grey Mountains (2015), Who Drove Nearly All Lagos Men Mad (2023), Festival of Bribes (2026)
Naija Book Club: Some readers believe that your collection of short stories, Who Drove Nearly All Men in Lagos Mad? is a response to Nearly All the Men in Lagos Are Mad, a similarly titled book by Nigerian author Damilare Kuku. Is that the case? If so, how does your collection compare with hers?
Answer: The short answer is no. That is not the case, and here’s why. Copies of the other book were circulating online long before I finished writing mine, but I deliberately avoided reading it. Partly because I wanted to finish writing mine first, without her ideas or choices, or elements of her story shaping mine. The day I wrote the last chapter and sent my manuscript to my publishers, I went straight into Roving Heights at Landmark and bought my own copy. So, while it is not a rebuttal, my book provided a balanced view to ensure that not every relationship in my collection ends in disaster. My book Who Drove Nearly All Lagos Men Mad comes more from an interest in the danger of a single story; hence the need to provide that balanced view that it isn’t men specifically who may be mad in Lagos, but it’s people generally. And whichever way you bend depends on how you make your bed and how you build the relationship you’re in.
Naija Book Club: What inspired you to write The Festival of Bribes?
Answer: The 2023 elections left me with a lot of questions. Questions about where the 68million Nigerians out of the 93 million registered voters at the time were? I wondered why only 25million people came out to vote, which represented less than a quarter of the population. What were the rest of us doing that day? At home? Resting, or sleeping? I believe we needed to remind ourselves that we have an active role to play in making our society a better place, and that inspired me to highlight this message through my book. I have actually been thinking about civic participation for a long time. Back in 2015, I received recognition from Nigeria’s National Orientation Agency for an essay I wrote, titled “The Role of Youths in Nationalization”. The essay tried to highlight, essentially, what role each of us must play in society. Festival of Bribes asks the same question, just turned toward elections: what role do you and I have to play in Nigerian elections? The thought I keep coming back to is simple: what would happen if 50 million Nigerians came out to vote this year? That’s not a question about any party or candidate; it’s about the number itself. Fifty million is roughly half of registered voters. That’s not an unreasonable ask. I just want to see what happens if that number shows up.
Naija Book Club: What was your creative process like while writing The Festival of Bribes?
Answer: My process is shaped by everything I’ve trained in, from engineering to business analysis to strategic thinking. And then the fact that I write around my 9-to-5 job, so I have to be structured about it. Ideas usually don’t wait for convenient moments, so I capture them whenever they show up and build them into an idea database, then return to flesh them out properly when I can remove all the noise around me. An idea once came to me in the middle of an exam, and I scribbled it on the back of my question paper. That’s really the shape of my process, because the structure is only for when I can sit down and write, but the ideas themselves show up on their own schedule.
Naija Book Club: In your opinion, what role does a book cover play in how a book is received? Beyond sales, how does it shape the conversation around a book, the readers it attracts, and the way it is reviewed and discussed?
Ugochukwu Ugonna: A book cover plays a huge role. For Festival of Bribes, I made the decision to give up control of that decision, so I put together a WhatsApp group, had people vote on the cover options, and I asked them to explain their reasoning. The cover that came out now was not the one I expected to win, and honestly, it wasn’t my personal favourite in the first place. But I liked the idea of letting go of what I thought was the best cover and allowing others to make the decision for the cover you finally see today. This is also why I believe a cover isn’t just a marketing decision. It’s a separate argument the book makes for itself.
Naija Book Club: Apart from your own book, what book would you recommend for Nigeria’s current political moment and why?
Ugochukwu Ugonna: I’d recommend 2 books. The first is Chinua Achebe’s A Man of the People because it satirizes vote-buying, patronage, and opportunism in post-independence politics, and these are issues we should always bring to the fore. The second is ‘Fighting Corruption Is Dangerous’ by Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, because it is a firsthand account from someone who fought corruption from inside government and a reminder of the personal cost of that fight.
