National Honours: Charade or Parade
By
Is honour really given to those who deserve it in Nigeria? In this blessed country of ours where logic walks on its head, anything goes. Recently on a trip to Benin City, I re-united with Evangelist Nafiu Bello- Osagie, one of the first Olympians this country produced.
In 1952 he represented Nigeria in the country’s first participation in a global competition at which he placed sixth. Still trim and fit in his seventies, the vivid memories of his feat in shattering the 14-year-old record of his town’s man, George Garrick, on the old Edo College grounds, Benin City, in 1951 came fresh to me.
Three years later, he won a bronze medal in Vancouver, Canada at the British Empire Games at which his younger compatriot, Major Emmanuel Ifeajuna, took the gold. Although Bello-Osagie jumped the same height of six foot-seven with Paul Etulu of Uganda, he was placed third because he dropped the bar once. Nobody remembers Bello Osagie nowadays in sports nor are his exploits published to spur up-coming ones. Nobody talks of when four of them, gallant young men, broke the Nigerian high jump record by scaling six-foot-six to qualify for the Olympics. The others were Majekodunmi, Ornoruyi, Odobo and B.A.A Guobadia. When Majekodunmi died there were no comets seen.
Nobody talks of Ifeajuna today even though unknown quantities who would have perished in obscurity have exploited his daring act to become national and international personalities.
All former heads of state have decorated themselves with GCFR. Some of them were soldiers who came to the limelight through leading coups. Their aides also got national honours. lfeajuna has none post humously even though he was the first to place Nigeria’s name on the world map.
All the top soldiers and policemen now honour themselves for looting the treasury. The same happen to their accomplices in public life and business.
One recollects not so long ago how a young man whose services were hardly quantifiable was decorated with a national honour for a patched-up work. One then retrospected on his predecessors like Bamanga Mohammed Tukur, as head of Nigerian Ports Authority, along with the inimitable Brigadier Benjamin Adekunle who cleared the Nigerian ports and saved this country’s name internationally. Tukur has no national honour although in his tenure he built four now under utilised ports in a record three years and modernised others. Newspapers published recently that the stone that the builders rejected has become the corner piece globally. He was decorated with a national honour of the Commander of the Order of Mono by Togo. He serves as an economic adviser to President John Kuffour of Ghana, besides his position as the President of the African Business Roundtable.
Tukur was member of the discarded VISION 2010, governor of Gongola State and Federal Minister of Industries. How he has not been deemed fit to be decorated with a national honour is still a mystery even when his distant successors have been so honoured.
General Yakubu Gowon never gave national honours when he ruled because he was very careful not to make it a free-for-all. Were he to have done so, he would have honoured Adekunle and Tukur, If president Shehu Shagari were of the present breed he would not have decorated nationalists like the Right Honourable Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Chief Obaferni Awolowo, Comrade Michael lmuodu, Chief Anthony Enahoro, Chief Samuel 0. lghodaro and others.
What is wrong anyway in giving post-homous award to Mallam Aminu Kano, Oged Macaulay, Saad Zungur, Raji Abdahlah, Abubakar Zukogi, Smart Ebbi, Odunfuwa, Ogoegbunarn, Dafe, Franco Olugbake, Mbonu Ojike Wahab Goodluck, H.P Adebola, Abiodun Aloba, Increase Coker, OlahisiOnabanjo and others for their meritorious contributions to trade unionism and journalism?
Justice Ephraim Akpata conducted one of the few acceptable federal, state and local government elections in post-independence history. He died in active service. He made democracy a reality in 1999. There is no posthumous award for him yet.
Let us cast our minds back to the colonial era. In 1958, my boss, Benjamin O.Oguntimehin, was awarded the MBE (Member of the British Empire) by the Queen. He was the Labour Relations Officer of the Public Works Department in the West. His permanent secretary, director of works. establishment officer and other Senior Officers who were his superiors, got none, in 1962, Bernard Akenebor, the always very well-dressed photographer and film maker of the Ministry of Information in the West was given the M.B.E. His superior bosses, political and professional, were not decorated. Akenebor was not even in the very senior cadre of the civil service then. Now if you are a service chief, a deputy service chief a Secretary to the Federal government or Head of Service or occupy some of those innocuous positions in politics, you automatically qualify for an honour. In fact, what has Senator Anyim Pius Anyim contributed to Nigeria to earn him a G.C.O.N? If we were not cheapening houours. Joseph Wayas held that position for four years and three months and was not so decorated. it shows the quality of the present Nigerian government where anything goes. Small wonder that almost every bank managing director and the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria were decorated. What are their contributions, positively to the economy. The naira continues to depreciate, the factories are idle and their warehouses have been taken over by Pentecostal churches.
Agriculture is still in the doldrums. How have these banks contributed to revive sleeping industries or to save those that are comatose? Yet titans like Sam Aluko, Tijani Yesufu and other economic gurus are sholved aside unsung. All those people participated in building the Nigerian economy that worked in the mid-1950s, 1960s and 1970s. Has Nigeria given post-humous award to Abdulazeez Attah who with the late Awolowo managed a war economy without borrowing from any country?
This country does not respect pioneers. It revers thieves. In our young days, we heard and saw Lisabi Mills. Has the late Ladipo, the pioneer industrialist, been honoured post—humouslv? Even those who are still alive like Alhaji Jimoh Odutola and Chief Gabriel 0. Igbinedion are sidelined. Odutola was the first Nigerian to set up a tyre retreating factory and a foam factory. Now 98 years old, he has not been given a national award.lgbinedion owned Mid-motors, the first indigenous Nigerian company to be given franchise to distribute cars. Later, he set up plants to assemble tricycles and the famous Nediori cars in partnership with Fiat of Italy. The hostile Nigerian business climate ruined those ventures. And he also popularised private aviation business with the now legendary Okada Air, He has not earned any national honour.
Must we not mention achievers in government like Dr. Samuel Ogbemudia and Chief Lateef Kayode Jakande. There is yet anything to add to the achievements of these men in the Midwest and Lagos where they ruled decades after their departure. Instead, unwitting successors have almost ruined their legacies. But the people know better and still hold them in high esteem because their handiworks are there to see despite years of neglect, inefficiency and heartless corruption.
It was gladdening that Augustine Okocha (Jay, Jay) was given the OON. But he is from Delta, Ogwashi-ukwu, for that matter and not Enugu State. That clearly shows the levity with which national affairs are handled now adays. Government in this respect is guilty of inveterate shirker. So one would not be surprised to see people, like Ibrahim Gumel decorated. Was it for any excellence in running sports when volleyball went to sleep after he took the association over from the innovative and energetic Eddie Aderinokun? Is it for his part in the crisis-ridden Nigerian Olympic Committee (NOCY)?
Elisha Oghogho, Kolawole Ebomoyi, the great nationalist, was the first Nigerian stockbroker. He worked for the firm of Coasta before John Holt brought him to Nigeria to start the money market in 1962. When he lived, his peers , who became tycoons via the stock market, hardly remembered him. Yet in the I 960s and 1 970s, he was still the toast of The City, London. The selfless young accountant, Odedina, who pioneered the Lagos Stock Exchange, is rarely referred to now by those in charge. And he was the builder of that edifice.
Nigeria must change her ways. She must allot praise to whom it is due and blame also to those who deserve it. It is the only way the people could be mobilized for progress. As at the moment, the country is like a circus. There are too many court jesters.
September 2003