Prizes & Awards
- 2024: Lagos International Poetry Festival (LIPFest) Lifetime Achievement Award
- 2024: Furious Flower Lifetime Achievement Award (James Madison University)
- 2024: The Golden Key Poetry Award in Serbia (the country's most prestigious poetry
award) - 2022: The Outstanding Achievement Award of The 5th Boao International Poetry Festival, Shanghai, China.
- 2014 : Nigerian National Merit Award (NNMA), Nigeria’s highest honour for distinguished creative and intellectual achievement.
- 2008: The Tchicaya U ‘Tamsi Award for African Poetry (regarded as Africa’s highest poetry prize)
- 2004: The Spectrum Books Award to The Eye of the Earth as “One of Nigeria’s Best 25 Books in the Last 25 Years”
- 1998: Fonlon/Nichols Prize for “Excellence in Literary Creativity Combined with Significant Contributions to Human Rights in Africa”; African Literature Association (ALA)’s most distinguished award)
- 1994: Cadbury/ANA Poetry Prize (Nigeria’s highest poetry prize). Also won the maiden edition in 1989
- 1991: Noma Award (Africa’s most prestigious Book Award; the first Anglophone African poet to receive the award)
- 1991: Kwanza Award
- 1989: Honorable Mention, Noma Award
- 1986: Joint-Winner, Overall Commonwealth Poetry Prize
- 1986: Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) Poetry Prize
- 1986: Honorable Mention, Noma Award
- 1981: Major Book Prize and Letter of Commendation, BBC Poetry Competition
- 1968: First Prize, Western State of Nigeria Poetry Competition