Also published in
DAILY TRUST
Unlike elsewhere, where national honours are
reserved for some exceptionally competent people able to think outside the box
to achieve exceptional results that would significantly add real values to some
critical sectors in human or at least their nations’ endeavours, in Nigeria the
criteria, essence and objectives of awarding national honours hardly if at all
seem to consider that.
Perhaps it is only in Nigeria where mere
growing old qualifies a top former civil of public servant to be considered for
national honours or to be regarded as a statesman for that matter. While in reality,
the vast majority of such so-called statesmen and national award honourees were
not only corrupt and incompetent when they worked, but some of them were
actually the masterminds of the country’s misery. In some countries they
would still be made to pay for their previous crimes anyway, but in Nigeria
they are revered in a bizarre display of sheer hypocrisy.
Moreover, even most of those “competent” and
“hardworking” might not have necessarily deserved the honours, because they
probably only distinguished themselves by simply doing what they were actually
supposed to do, which though is commendable but does not necessarily qualify
them for national honours. Yet in Nigeria where mediocrity is passionately
celebrated, they attract such celebration for basically being not as worse as
the majority of their counterparts.
I may not exaggerate if I assert that, all
those who over the decades have looted the country, neglected and/or ruined her
infrastructure, have been decorated with national honours, with the worst of
them ironically having the highest national honours for that matter. Though
this does not however mean that, all the honourees are corrupt, instead there
are few out there who actually deserved it and even more. Equally however,
there are many who also deserve it, but are not even recognized in the first
place, let alone be honoured.
It is noteworthy that, honours of such nature are intended to show appreciation and highlight the honouree’s exceptional accomplishments, inspire others to emulate him and indeed immortalize his footprints for the posterity to follow. Even though the whole arrangement is nowadays either out fashion or does no longer attract any considerable socio-political significance anymore in most functional countries around the world, because after all, there are more effective ways to celebrate individuals’ excellences in much better ways to inspire others, which are also much more rewarding for the honourees themselves.
Moreover, the revolutionary impact of modern
information technology, which has facilitated the flow of information in an
unprecedented way, has improved public awareness and put them in the position
to accurately judge the performance of their respective public figures, hence
influence the way the history would remember them. Gone are the days when
crooks and other notorious characters would be laundered, packaged and
presented to the gullible public as heroes and statesmen. An average man all
over the world is nowadays enlightened enough to tell if any public figure
actually deserves any honour or not, notwithstanding his official honours or
decorations.
Nevertheless, in Nigeria where chasing the
shadow instead of the substance is largely the norm, such so-called national
honours still attract huge public interests, which explains why the potential
honourees jostle and manoeuvre to any extent in order to grab as many honours
and decorations as possible. Incidentally also, each particular honour
facilities the acquisition of a higher one. Unfortunately however, this largely
plays out at the expense of pursuing actual excellence and real accomplishment
To digress a little, perhaps such excessive glorification of national honours might have been informed by Nigerians’ fondness of ascribing some distinctive titles to their names, in the process of which they go to sometimes funny extent in ascribing some largely self-acclaimed or actually underserved religious, traditional, professional academic business and other career titles to themselves. By the way, even the outdated and indeed uncivilized titles of “Excellency” and “Honourable” are so cherished that, omitting them in addressing a Nigerian top government executive is effectively regarded as contempt.
Interestingly enough, I prefer to look at
issues like this from the layman’s perspective, because Nigerian elite aren’t
good even in manipulating things in such tricky ways that require any
intellectual or analytical skills for one to unravel. Accordingly, I would
argue that, there is a clear contradiction characterizing such honour awards on
one hand and the actual impacts of most of the honourees, which unsurprisingly
creates confusion. Because, logically speaking, if all those so-called
decorated honourees had actually deserved their honours, the country would not
have been that messy in the first place.
Therefore, had they really been of such
qualities, poverty, crime, disease unemployment and other socio-economic crises
would not have pervaded the country. After all, these are real challenges that
no amount of eloquent talks can negate. So, it is clear that, both the
awarders and most the awardees of such honours are collaborators in a big fraud
game, which however is easily discernible.
This explains why all one hears in such occasions to describe the selected honourees, are some superfluous (though empty) flatteries in general terms e.g. patriot, selfless, competent, diligent, upright etc….. However, there is hardly if at all any specific reference to any exceptional achievement accomplished by any of the honourees. After all, all the sectors in which such honourees work or worked, and in which they purportedly added exceptional values to deserve the honours e.g. power, agriculture, education, security etc… are all in a mess.
Incidentally, I am sure that, had Nigeria’s
educational system been competitive enough to inspire analytical thinking
skills amongst her pupils and students, Nigerian history teachers and lectures
in particular would have found themselves in a big dilemma. Because they would
have to grapple with the curiosities and enquiries of their pupils and students
on how there is always such contradiction between the excellent qualities
attributed to the most of the country’s past and present “heroes”, “statesmen”
and national award winners on one hand, and their actual achievement when they
worked, on the other.
In any case however, and regardless of whether one faces such a dilemma or not, one owes himself a duty of being sincere at least to himself, and not allow himself to be deceived by mere empty rhetoric. One is a living witness about whether the majority of such so-called honourees are actually honourable or not, because the persistent agony he endures says it all.
In reality, national honours in Nigeria
unfortunately represent a celebration of mediocrity, incompetence and
corruption, which necessarily means encouraging others to follow the same route
leading to the acquisition of such honours.
