National honours: Chinua Achebe is not alone

Immediately following my reply, ‘in bed sir’ would be why? What could I say?  It was however a pleasant surprise that access to my president was that easy. Indeed, I too called him a few times and surprisingly again, I got answered. But perhaps the best of my experiences which is relevant to today’s piece […]

Immediately following my reply, ‘in bed sir’ would be why? What could I say?  It was however a pleasant surprise that access to my president was that easy. Indeed, I too called him a few times and surprisingly again, I got answered. But perhaps the best of my experiences which is relevant to today’s piece happened one Saturday morning. I was summoned to see the president. What I saw pleased me. He was in a relaxed mood, on the bare rug reading a collection of the day’s newspapers. I was exceedingly delighted to see the president put himself in a position to have a firsthand knowledge of public opinion, bad press and all types of criticisms-a fruitful position that many people in such a powerful office often miss. Anyone who watches the goings on in the corridors of power in Nigeria would confirm that a President who does not personally look through the newspapers is an executive prisoner who would be easily misled by his special warders-ministers and other aides.

These days that I am out of office, I know little of how my brother President Jonathan operates. I just hope it is different from what I saw the only day I was there when every operative put up a show of who of them could best eulogize the president. The average statement that day was that there was no other Nigerian like Goodluck Jonathan! Yes, Jonathan is no doubt a divinely favoured being among us but he needs to, on his own, look through media reports once a while to understand the half-truths and songs of praise by hangers-on. That is one easy way of knowing that many things which are presented to him as popular do not impress many people. One of the things the President may get to better appreciate is that criticisms by of Nigerians with respect to this year’s national honours award are deep-seated and widely shared.  The ritual has not been credible. Lets us start from the award which the president himself got earlier- the Grand Commander of the Federal Republic (GCFR). Since it is reserved for persons who have held the office of President, Jonathan should get it but the relevant law- the National Honours Act, No. 5 of 1964, says only a sitting president can confer the title on another. Thus, the pressure which some members of the National Council of State put on the president to get his not from a sitting president is in our considered opinion, irregular. Besides, why should any award be reserved for any office? Since it is not impossible to have a poorly performed president, how do we differentiate a poor performer from an achiever if both are entitled to GCFR?

Another thing the president would better appreciate is the claim by Professor Chinua Achebe that what influenced his own refusal of the previous national honour offered him has not changed. Achebe’s position is not out of place because although the 2011 elections were comparatively satisfactory, free and fair is however not an accurate description of their conduct. While there appears to be some good measure of unanimity that President Jonathan’s own victory is not contentious, the situation is not the same as the case of most other “winners”.   Many individuals are still genuinely aggrieved over several unwholesome practices in their polling booths. While it is true that Professor Attahiru Jega, chairman of our electoral commission, has personally exhibited good faith, there are still too many crooks in the commission. Do Nigerians, including Mr President, know that in Lagos alone, INEC has allowed over one thousand of its priceless DDC machines to be stolen? In any case, if government was so satisfied with the 2011 election, why then was Jega, the main midwife, not recommended to be honoured?

It is not uncharitable to regard as premature, the inclusion of many governors in this year’s award. We suspect that it was due to pressure from the latest most active trade union of our times- the Nigerian Union of Governors. If history is anything to go by, it is fast becoming common for governors to be shown to be ordinary criminals soon after leaving office. For this reason, it would have been wiser to tarry a bit in honouring serving governors. But what probably took the shine off the award to governors this year is the omission of Governor Fashola of Lagos performing acclaimed as the best performed among our current governors. The inclusion of many Ministers and some other top government officials in this year’s award is similarly not self explanatory. Differentiating the achievements of the ministers honoured and those who were not is an exceedingly difficult task. So, why were some honoured? It would not be a persuasive answer to say that others are yet to be tested because there are many untested office holders in this year’s award. From the posture of the new Speaker of the House of Representatives, he looks a promising transformer but he has done nothing yet other than his disobedience of his party’s directive on the zoning of the office of Speaker with which to assess him for celebration. The same is true of the new Head of Service of the Federation whose name we are getting set to know.

Painfully, some of the top officials honoured are either in charge or are supervisors of those who processed the awards. Yet, we had shortage of medals at the ceremony. It was the second such national embarrassment in less than one year.  During the celebration of the country’s 50th independence anniversary in October last year, we were also unable to produce enough medals to go round just 50 people who were honoured. We are free in the absence of information to assume that those responsible for such lapses are never penalized hence the ugly trend often recurs. Indeed, apart from Samson Siasia, our immediate past soccer coach, who was made vicariously liable for our team’s poor performance, other office holders have no cause to be diligent as everyone’s tenure appears ensured. That probably explains why in this period, where the nation has had its greatest security challenges ever, almost everyone in charge of our security was on this year’s award list! In fairness, it is easy to see how well stretched our security agencies are these days, but that does not justify the national honours bestowed on them at this point in time. This is because if they make a break through tomorrow, by returning the nation to normalcy through the smashing of all security challenges, we may have no awards for them except we get other friendly nations to loan us some of theirs!!