The Hilltop Creative Arts Foundation (HCAF) is overjoyed to announce the winners of the 2025 HIASFEST Star Prize: Yahuza Usman from Taraba State and Oyeleye Mahmoodah Temitope from Lagos State. HIASFEST, short for the Hadiza Ibrahim Aliyu Schools Festival, is Africa’s largest gathering of teen artists, featuring categories like poetry, short stories, essays, painting, drama, and more. This prestigious festival, generously sponsored by Alh. Bala Abdullahi Kwatu and the Aliyu Trust Foundation, celebrates the creative brilliance of young talents in the arts, furthering HCAF’s mission to empower young creatives across the globe.
As part of their prize, Yahuza and Mahmoodah will serve as Keynote Speakers at the finals of HIASFEST 2025, delivering speeches on topics of their choice, concerning creativity, youth, education, Nigeria, technology, and humanity. They also receive a cash prize of ₦50,000 each in recognition of their outstanding achievements.
Yahuza Usman:
Yahuza Usman [Crawling Writer], the Secretary of the Taraba State branch of Hilltop Creative Arts Foundation, is a Nigerian award-winning teen author, essayist, spoken word artiste, book reviewer, Wikimedian, typist, graphic designer, short-story writer, and versatile poet who has many of his works featured/forthcoming in many literary magazines, including Brittle Paper, Pawners Paper, Words Rhyme and Rhythm, Piker Press, Double Speak, Micromance Magazine, Afrihil Press, Al-Mir’aatu Magazine, World Voices Magazine, Literary Yard, Itell Stories and Everything Beautiful, ArtingArena, Opinion Nigeria, Synchronized Chaos Magazine, The Daily Pointers, Spillwords Press, Cajum Mutt Press, and elsewhere.
As a writer whose talent was discovered during HIASFEST and being nurtured by the Hilltop Creative Arts Foundation (HCAF), he coauthored “Let Me Grieve” with Joel Oyeleke in 2023, a duet chapbook published by ArtingArena. He was shortlisted among the Indian Iconic Writers in 2022. His collection “Shapeless Room” was shortlisted for ArtingArena’s Poetry Chapbook Contest 2023. He is the recipient of the first prize winner; On-the-spot Non-fiction Writing at HIASFEST 2023, and emerged as the most valuable male contestant [star boy] of HIASFEST 2024 after winning three prizes.
As part of his thrive to hone his art, he attended the maiden edition of Kano International Poetry Festival 2024 and got mentored on poetry writing. Giving back to society, he’s been using his talent and role to mentor young writers across HCAF-10 cells and beyond: Helena Heritage Academy, Best Helena Heritage School, Al-Mishkat Academy, Albayan School, Almashkur Academy and even Taraba State University.
Oyeleye Mahmoodah Temitope:
Oyeleye, Mahmoodah Temitope emerged winner of the HIASFEST Nigeria Prize for Teen Authors (Prose, 2021). This win opened the doors to a series of successes in her creative writing journey, including the sponsored publication of her debut novel, Faded Blues, which emerged winner of the Youths Digest Campus Journalism Awards, authors category (2022).
Some of her other works have topped literary contests including the NESA-LASU essay competition (2023) and the Peace Tale Competition (Senior Category, 2023), and others have been finalists and semi-finalists for varying literary prizes including the Wakaso Poetry Prize (Q¹ 2024), Abubakar Gimba Prize For Creative Nonfiction (2023), Akachi Chukwuemeka Prize For Literature (2023), Gimba Suleiman Hassan esq. Poetry Prize (2023), PROFWIC Valentine’s Day Writing Contest (2023), MSSN-LASU Essay Competition (2022), BKPW Poetry Contest (February 2022), Writefluenza horror/suspense/thriller contest (2021) and others.
Her publications have graced the print/online platforms of Muse, Brittle Paper, the Kalahari Review and others, including some international anthologies like the IHRAF Youth Anthology 2022, The Other Side (Writefluence anthology) and INNSAEI: International Journal of Creative Literature for Peace and Humanity (IJCLPH).
In March 2021, she became the chairperson of the Hilltop Creative Arts Foundation, Lagos Branch, through which she has honed a passion for leadership, volunteering, creativity and sustainable development. She holds core roles at Sokoka and Second Life Squad, where she puts her passion to good use. She is a first-class graduate of the Department of Economics, Lagos State University. In her free time, she reads, crochets and unwinds with mobile games.
The 2025 HIASFEST Star Prize winners are a prime example of the extraordinary brilliance and inventiveness of Nigeria’s youngsters. HIASFEST continues to give young artists a platform to flourish by providing scholarships, mentorship, and national exposure, all made possible by the steadfast support of sponsors like Alh. Bala Abdullahi Kwatu and the Aliyu Trust Foundation.
Congratulations to Yahuza Usman and Oyeleye Mahmoodah Temitope on their remarkable achievements.
