In
the next few weeks , the government — in what has become its annual
ritual — is expected to reel out all sorts of names as recipients of the
national honours awards.
Unfortunately, rather than eliciting
excitement, what do we have? Resentment and criticism continue to trail
the awards and this raises the question as to whether the initial
rationale for the exercise is still present.
Ordinarily, national honours awards
should be highly celebrated, cherished and treasured because they are
hinged on the collective integrity of the nation and its peoples and are
awarded to deserving persons who have made outstanding and meritorious
contributions to their nation’s development in terms of education,
industry, security, world peace, science, arts, technology, sports,
culture or other significant public and private areas.
The philosophy of the gesture is to spur
others to do better by serving as a morale booster or motivator
towards hard work, excellence, creativity and human virtues.
Regrettably, the history of the awards
for several years now suggests that though some awardees really deserved
the glory, it has been utterly skewed in favour of the rich and few
members of business and political elite.
The awards were established through the
National Honours Act No. 5 of 1964 and empower the President to make
provision for the awards. The unwieldy number of people given the awards
yearly also accounts for the loss of allure. Since the 1963, when the
award was initiated, over 4,000 citizens and friends of Nigeria have
been decorated under the various categories.
In the United States of America – after
which we modelled our federalism — with its over 200 years of
independence, there are just about 3,000 recipients of such awards. This
is certainly a pointer to how prestigious the awards could be to a
serious nation.
Due to its debasement, some notable
Nigerians selected for the awards had tactfully rejected them to show
their discontentment with the state of the nation. We still remember the
Minority Leader of the House of Representatives, Hon. Femi
Gbajabiamila; the social critic and former Petroleum Minister, Professor
Tam David-West; the well respected late literary guru and author,
Professor Chinua Achebe; and the late human rights activist, Chief Gani
Fawehinmi (SAN).
As a matter of urgency, the awards
should be reformed in the national interest. To begin with, a set of new
criteria and template should be developed that will make it impossible
for people of questionable characters to be awarded such honours.
As obtainable in several progressive
societies, awards are usually conferred only after the outstanding
officials might have served out their terms meritoriously and are
clearly seen to be above board. In our clime, it is widely believed that
many awardees lobbied to be nominated, thus eroding its credibility, as
those favoured were never the best or most-deserving officers.
On the micro level, this crisis of value
system and bridled materialism could also be responsible for the
indecorous practice where people of questionable characters are showered
with chieftaincy titles while our ivory towers too have been accused of
awarding honorary degrees to rich and influential politicians with
little or no contributions to education, knowledge, humanity, tertiary
institutions or the society in general.
To begin with, the eligibility criteria
should be holistically reviewed and widely publicised in the media. In
other words, the shortlisted candidates’ details should be published
with sufficient time to enable members of the public to file objections
or complaints and the process for adjudicating such objections should be
generally acceptable, clear, transparent and expeditious.
Members of the public, as stakeholders,
should have an ample role to play in the nominations while the
government on the other hand should reduce its control over who gets
honoured, to bring about transparency. There should be room to drop the
names of anybody found to have been genuinely discredited at any stage
of the exercise. This has never happened.
Again, there is the need to put in place
a proper administrative machinery to organise and implement this
important national assignment. It is disheartening to note that the
previous awards ceremony had witnessed avoidable hiccups and lapses.
A number of persons advertised to
receive the honours were often found to have indeed received the same
class of honours previously while some who had received higher honours
before were ignorantly downgraded. Do we then call this an honour or
dishonour?
Perhaps, we have been experiencing the
abnormality because of the calibre of the National Honours Award
Committee and its modus operandi.
In view of the shortcomings, President
Goodluck Jonathan was right when he directed the “appropriate
departments to note the concerns expressed and take steps to ensure
further improvement so that the national honours awards can continue to
serve their purpose”.
Several years ago, the National Honours
Nominations Committee, headed by the late Alhaji Liman Ciroma, had
slated for consideration, proposals for reform of the national honours
process. As laudable as the proposal was, it was not allowed to see the
light of the day!
Former Chief Justice of Nigeria, Alfa
Belgore, and the Nigerian Bar Association had recently condemned the
move to deny the President the exclusive powers to award national
honours.
Belgore, the current Chairman of the
National Award Honours Committee seems to disagree too with the idea of
excluding serving public office holders from being recognised.
With this posturing, there is bound to
be a dissonance between the line of thoughts of the committee and the
feelings of Nigerians.
It will amount to a great disservice if
the true heroes and heroines — the poor and the unheard but outstanding
school teacher, missionary, pensioners, farmers, market women,
journalists and the like — are again sidelined. This, the government,
should consider if we are to truly reclaim the lost glory of our
national honours awards.
- Kupoluyi writes from the Federal
University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, vide, adewalekupoluyi@yahoo.co.uk,
Twitter, @AdewaleKupoluyi
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