By Emmanuel Nduka
The President Muhammadu Buhari-led Government had fixed October 11, 2022 to hold a posh event at the State House, Abuja, to confer National Awards on hundreds of Nigerians. A leaked list which the Presidency dismissed, detailed that 437 persons had been shortlisted for the awards, which is traditional for every Nigerian leader to confer on deserving citizens who have distinguished themselves in service to nation building.
While the Federal Government had treated the widely circulated list as “fake news”, and said that it was working to amend it, Nigerians did not fail to decode its shortcomings. A close and cross examination of the list shows that 60 to 70 percent of the recipients have not critically impacted the country, whether in economy, politics, or what have you, to deserve such prestigious glorification. Many have questioned the criteria for which the names were arrived at.
The ‘debunked’ list had already steered mixed reactions on social media as many Nigerians tagged the development as “an award of failure, incompetence and corruption”. When the Government would later release the ‘official’ list on Monday, it eventually turned out not to be different from the list already circulating on social media. The initial list contained the same number of names (437) as the official list released by the Special Assistant on Digital Communications to President Buhari.
With little consideration to merit and capacity, majority of the recipients typifies individuals who are in the list because they are in the good books of the current administration, or probably because of they share the same bloodline with the President, justifying the phrase ‘blood is thicker than water’. According to the list, politicians, public officers, security officers, businessmen, traditional rulers, members of the academia, retired public officers, religious leaders and musical artistes are among the classes of Nigerians that will be awarded.
The categories include: Order of the Federal Republic, consisting of Grand Commander of the Order of the Federal Republic (GCFR), Commander of the Order of the Federal Republic (CFR), Officer of the Order of the Federal Republic (OFR), and Member of the Order of the Federal Republic (MFR). Also, in the Order of the Niger, are Grand Commander of the Order of the Niger (GCON), Commander of the Order of the Niger (CON), Officer of the Order of the Niger (OON), and Member of the Order of the Niger (MON).
Notable Names Missing Out
Conspicuously, credible names are missing on the list. How did the name of Udom Emmanuel, the performing Governor of Akwa Ibom State miss the list? His capacity and tenacity in driving Industrialisation, Infrastructural and human capacity development in the state remains unmatched in Nigeria. The said list did not also include Lieutenant Colonel Abu Ali, the Commanding Officer of the 272 Task Force Tank Battalion who led other gallant troops to recapture Baga town in Borno State from Boko Haram in one of the most fiercest battles with insurgents in 2015. Until his death in 2016, he was nicknamed “BK Killer” by his men owing to his successes against the insurgents.
A posthumous award was not also considered for Tolulope Arotile, the first-ever female combat helicopter pilot in the Nigerian Air Force, who was said to have died from a head injury sustained in a car accident just inside the Air Force base in Kaduna. Two years into her career, Arotile had acquired 460 hours of helicopter flight, which was an outstanding performance for a combat pilot. She was a five-star pilot who massively bombed insurgents in the North West and North East regions of Nigeria.
In the Energy sector, names of professionals whose visionary leadership has improved the local capacity of Nigeria in the Oil and Gas Industry were left out. A certain Ms Chantelle Abdul, CEO of Mojec Power and MOJEC Meter Company, a key power sector stakeholder and serial entrepreneur whose experience and reach has metered the homes of millions of Nigerians, was ignored. Ms Abdul led the growth of a small family business into one of the most iconic brands in the Nigerian Power Sector today, as well as the largest Smart Meter Manufacturer in West Africa, and possibly Sub-Saharan Africa. One of her first achievements as the newly installed CEO of MOJEC International, was to raise millions of dollars to build one of Nigeria’s largest state-of-the-art Smart Meter Assembly Facility with an installed capacity of over 1.2 million meters, annually.
Surprisingly, for the first time in Nigeria’s socio-political history, President Buhari, jettisoned the known convention and practice by excluding a former President of the Nigerian Senate- Bukola Saraki, who led the National Assembly from 2015 to 2019, from the national honours. Even with pleas from concerned stakeholders, Buhari who is not short of knowledge that Saraki is worthy of the award, deliberately left him out, maybe, because of their political rivalry. It has always been the convention and practice that a Vice President, Senate President, and CJN be given the title either on the assumption of office or when national awards were being generally bestowed on recipients.
In Nigeria’s Aviation industry, there is an unsung hero. Dr. Benard Olumuyiwa Aliu was the fifth and past President of Council of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) in Ottawa, Canada He did a lot for the Nigerian aviation sector. Between 2014 – 2019, he was the number one aviation personality in the world. While Buhari ignored him, he has been bestowed with numerous honours and awards globally for his achievements and contributions to the development of International Civil Aviation. The ICAO Museum was named after him.
Rewarding Incompetence
Nigeria’s Senate President who has been labelled by opposition as “rubber stamp”, leads the pack of recipients which also has relations of the President put up for awards. Many of the recipients have been considered by critics as praise singers and loyalists of the President, who have contributed nothing tangible to nation building, except that they have strong relationship with the Villa. Many have wondered how the names of persons who have not completed a single national project of interest have their names on the list.
Other surprising names listed by Buhari for conferment of the national honours were his nephew, Mamman Daura; his personal assistant, Sabiu Yusuf (Tunde); in-law, the Emir of Bichi, Alhaji Nasir Bayero. His spokesman, Femi Adesina who does nothing other than paint the President in many false colours to edify him, was also listed. Others close to Buhari, who were nominated for the award, include State House Chief of Protocol, Lawal Kazaure; the president’s aide on domestic affairs, Sarki Abba; personal physician, Sanusi Rafindadi; and State House Administrative Officer, Abubakar Maikano. His late Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari who was once considered to be one of the big guns of the Villa ‘Cabal’, was listed for posthumous award.
For someone supervising the Education Ministry in the face of a long-standing faceoff between striking Varsity lecturers and the Federal Government, Mallam Adamu Adamu, Nigeria’s Education Minister also made the cut. Under his watch, infrastructure and standards of education have fallen across the country. The education sector came out of recession in the second quarter of 2021, after contracting for five consecutive quarters since Q2 2020. The sector recorded a contraction of 0.75 percent in 2021 compared to a contraction of 13.57 percent in 2020. A statement issued by the National Public Relations Officer of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) Giwa Temitope, on Monday, said it was an insult to the collective intelligence of Nigerian students who had been locked out of schools for close to eight months due to the ongoing strike action of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) which Adamu had failed to resolve.
For the name of the DG of NIMASA who has made little or no impact at all in the Maritime sector to considered was further worrying. In Nigeria’s Maritime sector, there is a Dr Vicky Haastrup, a leading female force to reckon with in the industry. She is the Co-founder and Executive Vice Chairman of ENL Consortium Limited, the entity that manages the operations of Terminals C&D of the Lagos Port Complex, Apapa. With a robust 23-year working experience with the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, she was able to deal with the challenge of operating one of the most strategic terminals at the Lagos Port Complex.
The 437 names have again brought to the fore, Buhari’s preference for Nepotism over merit, capacity and Federal Character. Owing to their exploits at recent international outings, nobody would question why Ese Brume, Tobi Amusan, Blessing Okorodudu, and others got national awards. Their achievements speaks volumes. This should be the standards for giving national honours. Anything short of such standards will only be interpreted as political compensation. It is because of these shortcomings that some distinguished Nigerians like Professor Chinua Achebe rejected national honours.
Reactions
Speaking on the nominations, President of YIAGA Foundation, Samson Itodo noted that: “Those given these awards, ideally, should be icons that people see and revere and want to emulate those qualities that they have. But if you give these awards to people who, morally, don’t have the capital to hold those awards, Nigerians would not recognise or take those seriously.”
“It constitutes an insult on the collective intelligence of Nigerian students both home and in the diaspora that the Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu under whose nose University students have been home for close to 8 months is to be awarded the National Honours of Commander of the Order of Niger (CON). This singular act of the Buhari’s administration is a clear pointer to the fact that Nigerian students have been taken for a ride,” NANS said.
