National Honours

National Honours : Now Laughable !

Ibrahim Tudu

Our Nigerian National Honours Award now seems to outlive its credibility. Even though most people may still highly crave for it because of its national significance, others celebrate it with their own who won the awards and those that are prepared to do all it takes to see that they get to the list. The simple fact remains that the award cannot now be said to equal that given in the past in terms of integrity. More questions are constantly asked by Nigerians as to what do we have to do to make our national honors more honourable? All honors are synonymous with respect, reputations, nobility, distinction, reverence and integrity, where they are absent or questionable so are the awards would be. The Nigerian honors need a rescue.

In Nigeria as in any other country every nation has a system of recognizing outstanding achievements of its citizens. Such reward shows the nation’s appreciation for the contributions of those who have distinguished themselves in their services to the nation. Awards are also instruments for motivating others to strive for greater heights and to contribute more to the nation. In Nigeria over the years we have instituted several categories of awards that are conferred on Nigerians who have distinguished themselves in various areas. These awards includes; the National Honors awards, the Nigerian National Merit Award, the National Productivity Merit Award, the National Creativity Award, etc non of these have come under scrutiny and public objection like the National Honours Awards.

For years running the awards has been bedeviled by suspicion, complaints and outright non respect by some quarters. The recent 2009 investiture is more glaring in terms of these in appropriateness. The awards are seen to be given to even the disgraced, dishonorable and least deserving recipients. The awards are now dolled to whom is known, who you are, ex - this ex - that and which position you are holding now. By this it has derailed from the aims and objectives of the founding fathers. The awards are therefore becoming less credible and therefore losing is relevance. There is so much mistrust at the criteria for selection, recommendation, approval and short listing. Certainly awards from GCON, CFR, CON, OFR, OON, MFR, MON through to FRM can have its credibility affected with one wrong selection of few undeserving ones.

The National Honors were established via the National Honors Act No. 5 of 1964, during the First Republic, to honour Nigerians who have rendered special and outstanding services in their various callings. The Act empowers the President of the Federal Republic to make provisions for the award of the honours. Over the years it has been having a rough history.

Now is the time to sanitize the NHA and must be sanitized now! Our national honours are now become laughable in the eyes of the international communities and therefore discredited. The affair is now scandalous. What makes it scandalous can be summed up as follows; That it is our respected President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria that is made to approve and publically decorate the recipients who are sometimes of questionable characters, liars and sundry offenders, two; it’s a member of our revered justices of the federation, like the committees Chairman, Justice Alfa Modibbo Belgore, who is a respected former Justice of the Federal Republic of Nigeria that unbelievably chairs the selection of these awardees; three, some names of highly credible individuals and personalities with high integrity and reputations are regrettably included in the lineup probably to give legitimacy and credibility to the rest of the awardees for the benefit of those undeserving ones.

For some years now the roll call of some of the beneficiaries/recipients/awardees are not only laughable but objectionable. Those whose names made to the list are certainly questionable and not worthy of our highest national honours. Some of them are un-performing, expired and opportunists. This year’s award is among the ones seen to be among the most inappropriate where even the disgraced Patricia Etteh bagged a CFR. It makes an unpleasant sight to see Mr. President happily decorating some of the questionable characters in the name of the nation.

The awards have failed to produce a more pure, untainted and honorable criteria for selection, voting, no objection or public hearing on the nominees. The president in one way or the other has acknowledged this fact and the low standards of the awards and has promised to check the system by raising the bar for the process in order to in his words “further challenge compatriots to strive towards excellence” . In my humble opinion, the president doesn’t have to raise or lower any bar, what he needs to do is to amend or repeal the laws that leads to the abuse of the system and disband the committee and establish a new institution with fresh mandate to produce awards with high standard of integrity, stringent criteria for selection, nomination and award. Unless and until we set new rules our highest national honours and prestigious awards would continue to be toed with.

In simple terms the awards as they are presented now has been systematically compromised. These awards are now abused, hijacked and discredited. It is shameful to see some of those decorated could not even get recognition and approval from their immediate communities so much to say they have anything to offer to humanity or the nation. The awards are no longer synonymous with honour, hard work and integrity but opportunity and positions of authority not withstanding how one gets there or how he performed. The most inappropriate and dishonest way to corrupt the awards is to use the names of some few people of impeccable character and honour who are upright and delivering in order to give the award legitimacy and an avenue to mislead and short change Nigerian psyche and the international community.

For any award to be credible and continue to maintain its credibility it must be based on a system that is open and meritorious and based on what the society sees as honorable and decent. The system must be fair and just, must be related to humanity, merit and the society not selfish and personal interest of a few.

The awards should take care of federal character, regional balance, more fields of human endeavor and by achievements and accomplishments not a national cake. Results of nomination must be published, contested and input from the public and communities sought. The awards should include mechanism for cancellation or striping of individuals of the awards who commit dishonorable acts or are found by the public to be undeserving of such award. I think some of the previous recipients in Nigeria who are awarded some of them who are currently no longer honorable; some have either offended the country, perform dishonorable acts or do not deserve it at all. Some use the position to pose, some to extort and some for mere politicking.

Glaringly the committee and their awards have shortchanged the large number of credible youth, academia, civil society, the women, famers, disabled, the dead, the opposition and the common man who performs wonderfully in Nigeria today. The awards are now elitist. The awards must meet international standards, must stand the test of time, consistent and transparent for it to be legitimate and honourable. Honour must be given to those who deserve it.

I my own experience I have seen a dozen awardees past and present who I cannot append the title to their names because it would be detrimental and disservice to my dear country Nigeria because I hold the awards in high esteem. They don’t really deserve it. Other awards on this line include SAN, NIM, doctorate degrees and other traditional titles which if subjected to a short and simple test would reveal the jeopardy in the awards and the hijacking of the awards by the rich.

Whatever the committees or the speech writers for the Government officials would like to call the recipients at the ceremonies; certainly the chaff must be fished out of the wheat. In matters of integrity, morality and honour curriculum vitaes are not sufficient. Our coveted national honours are not for sale, for liars or for title sake, it must be on real merit and model ship.

Any country that gives honours to the undeserving ones and those that deserved it are not shortlisted that country is not only deceiving itself but committing an act of corruption. Mixing the credible and the incredible ones is an act of corruption. The system need to be overhauled and credited for it to produce credible honours.

While I have no any objection on the integrity and capacity of the members of the committee, I believe they may be handicap with old and expired criteria, they therefore need to be given new laws, checks and balances including a new mandate or institution to perform better. They should for example as part of their mandate have an intelligence arm to scout for people of highest integrity, impeccable characters who have distinguished themselves who need not to apply or request for the honours. The present system only favors who can obtain forms and opportunity to connect to the committee. One cannot compare the past recipients with the present power seekers, the corrupt and disgraced people while the leaving the honest and upright to live and die without the awards. Even though some will rather die than share the awards with some other bad guys, which give the reason for the increasing number of people rejecting the awards. It will turn out to be those rejecting the award are the real unofficial people that deserves the awards.

We should not deceive ourselves and the international community. Should it be right that mostly those that have a career in the civil service or holding position of authority, or ex this ex that makes one qualified for the award?

We leant that the original list was not the one sent to late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua for approval. After his death the list was further panel-beaten to accommodate some powerful interests. It was alleged that some candidates were substituted others demoted in the ranking of titles at the last hour.

I would like to suggest that we should please make the input of the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB), ICPC, EFCC and the Public Complaint Commission’s important for screening such awards. We can no longer tolerate the present status quo which is totally unacceptable.