By Uche Ohia
The celebration of the centenary anniversary of Nigeria’s existence as a nation has come and gone leaving in it’s wake a sour taste in the mouth. Much of the bile is traceable to the Centenary Awards which was meant to mark the highpoint of the anniversary but which has become it’s Achilles Heel.
Soon after the idea of a centenary celebration was mooted, three tendencies emerged in the polity: those who saw the centenary celebration as unnecessary and a needless waste of scarce resources irrespective of whether such funds came from the public till or private pockets; those that regarded the centenary anniversary as a necessary evil that would afford the nation an opportunity of a historical excursion – to take a look back at where we are coming from; and those that did not ‘give a darn’ (!) one way or the other.
There is basically nothing wrong with marking or celebrating milestones in the passage of time or bestowing honours on deserving persons even if, in an ostentatious society such as ours, emphasis often shifts from the substance to the superficial. Every society, community or nation has some arrangement for recognizing and rewarding the outstanding feats or achievements of its members. The idea behind such initiative is to appreciate the efforts of individuals that distinguish themselves in one area or the other or that accelerate the course of development of that society, community or nation. Awards are also intended to motivate others to strive for greater heights.
In Nigeria, honours and awards that are conferred on citizens who have distinguished themselves in various fields of endeavour include the National Honours which was instituted by the National Honors Act No. 5 of 1964, the Nigerian National Merit Award established in 1979 by Act No. 53, the National Productivity Merit Award (NPMA) and the National Creativity Award which were instituted in 1999. The Centenary Award is the latest in the train.
Aside from the poor timing of this revelry which took place whilst the nation was in shock and mourning the brutal and gruesome massacre of dozens of innocent students of Federal Government College, Buni Yadi in Yobe State and other senseless atrocities committed by insurgents in the North Eastern part of the country, the questionable choice of some of the honorees almost took the shine off an otherwise carefully packaged and managed extravaganza.
At the well attended Centenary Awards which was held with much razzmatazz in the cozy confines of the banquet hall at Aso Rock on February 28, 2014, President Goodluck Jonathan bestowed honours on 100 Nigerians and non-Nigerians living and dead in 14 categories. While most of the recipients were eminent persons deserving of even greater recognition, some obviously had no reason to be on the honours roll. Many deserving persons were left out.
For instance, in the first category tagged “Contributors to the making of Nigeria” Queen Elizabeth II was honoured which was okay; after all, it was Her Majesty who, as head of the British Government, granted independence to Nigeria in 1960. But, it was not the Queen but her grandfather (King George V) that was on the throne in 1914 when the Northern and Southern protectorates were amalgamated. Naturally, if the Queen deserves honour, so does the king.
Concerning the award given to Sir Fredrick Lugard (better known as Lord Lugard), the man would be smiling wryly wherever he is. Here was a colonial enforcer who came not with any fraternal or humanitarian intensions but to forcibly and forcefully weld together two disparate colonial entities for the economic benefit of the colonial master with scant regard for the consequences of that action on the future political development of the colonized people. The nation is still grappling with Lugard’s experiment and yet we honour him for his political ‘wizardry’? If Lugard is honoured for the ‘making of Nigeria’, Mungo Park should also be honoured for ‘discovery of the River Niger’ out of which the name Nigeria was weaved.
In any case, the credit given to Lugard in the ‘making of Nigeria’ is actually misplaced: George Taubman Goldie was the man who came up with a vision of adding to the British Empire the then little-known territories of the lower and middle Niger River. Taubman devoted over twenty years of his life to the realization of this vision through the Royal Niger Company which he founded as the United Africa Company in 1879. It was Goldie, not Lugard, that structured over 400 treaties with local chiefs of the lower Niger and the Hausa states which enabled Britain to assert it’s rights to the region at the Berlin Conference in 1884/1885! Without Taubman Goldie and his expansionist vision, there would have been no territories for Lord Lugard to amalgamate.
Also, it was Goldie’s, “Royal Niger Company Territories” (as Nigeria was then known) that Flora Shaw, the West African correspondent of the London Times who became Mrs Lugard wrote thus in her article published in the The Times of 8 January 1897: “The name ‘Nigeria’ applying to no other part of Africa may without offence to any neighbours be accepted as co-extensive with the territories over which the Royal Niger Company has extended British influence”. Why was Flora Shaw honoured but Taubman Goldie was not?
Similarly, in the second category, ‘Heroes of the Struggle for Independence’, awards were presented to Azikiwe, Balewa, Macaulay, Awolowo, Ahmadu Bello and co whose faces already adorn our currency notes and after whom most major roads, institutions and structures in Nigeria are named. No one can wish away the towering status of these heroes in the nationalist struggle. But there are other heroes worth celebrating and honouring on a historic occasion such as a centenary anniversary of our nation. The radical hotheads that founded the Zikist movement, for instance, represent the finest examples of true nationalists: Kola Balogun, Habib Rajih Abdullah, Nduka Eze, Bob Ogbuagu, Ikenna Nzimiro, M.C.K Ajuluchukwu, Abiodun Aloba, Anthony Enahoro, Osita Agwuna, etc. The climax of the nationalist agitation of the Zikist Movement was the ‘’Call for Revolution’’ speech delivered by the fiery Osita Agwuna (later HRM Igwe of Enugwu Ukwu) at Tom Jones Hall in Central Lagos in November 1948. Arising from that effrontery, leaders of the Zikist Movement were arrested by the colonial government, tried before a white judge, Horace Francis Baker, for sedition and incitement to disobey Her Majesty the Queen and jailed. On Feb. 28, 2014, Nigeria honoured the Queen and ignored these freedom fighters who risked life and limb for the political freedom of the nation!
Again, in the 4th category tagged “Pioneers in Commerce and Industry”, it is curious to find the name of the Cypriot merchant, Anastasios George Leventis missing from the list. How can anyone leave out A.G. Leventis and other early expatriates who saw the prospects of the emerging Nigerian economy in the early 1920s and 1930s and ignited Nigeria’s commerce and industry? A.G. Leventis that brought Coca-Cola to Nigeria? Haba!
That is not all. Category after category what we see is a lopsided selection that neither tells the full story of Nigeria at 100 nor even recognises the men and women who acted their parts in the script. In the 6th category, Hogan “Kid” Bassey who won the Empire featherweight boxing championship in Paris in 1957 was excluded from the “Heroes in Global Sports Competitions”.
The 10th category, ‘International Acclaimed Artists, Literary Icons and Journalists’, presents a more ludicrous instance. In 1933, Pita Nwana, a carpenter at the Methodist College, Uzuakoli wrote and published ‘Omenuko’ the first novel ever written in the Igbo language. Wole Soyinka, Nigeria’s most celebrated playwright, poet and Nobel laureate was born the year after! Daniel Fagunwa’s Ògbójú Ọdẹ nínú Igbó Irúnmalẹ̀ the first Yoruba novel was only written in 1938. It was translated into English in 1968 by Wole Soyinka as The Forest of A Thousand Daemons. For what reason was Daniel Fagunwa bestowed with a centenary award and Pita Nwana was not? That is a curious incongruity.
Before Fela Anikulapo Kuti and Osita Osadebe who were found fit for Nigeria’s centenary awards, there was Israel Nwoba Njemanze who in the 1950s founded a famous Lagos based orchestra that was known all over the country as the Three Night Wizards. What about Bobby Benson, Rex Lawson, Celestine Ukwu, Zeal Onyia, Dan Maraya, Ebenezer Obey, Victor Olaiya, Bongos Ikwue, Roy Chicago, Bayo Martins, IK Dairo, Sony Okosuns, Onyeka Onwenu, Sunny Ade and other great maestros that still tower above the music and entertainment industry with evergreen melodies and lyrics that make meaning?
How do we honour journalists that impacted on Nigeria without honouring Jim Bailey – the South African publisher and editor-in-chief of Drum? It was Drum that pioneered the news magazine format and introduced photo-journalism into Nigeria in the early 1950s. For nearly three decades, Drum and it’s sister publication, Trust, served as the graphic chronicler of Nigeria’s socio-political history in transition with fine writers and editors such as Nelson Ottah, Dapo Fatogun (Coz Idapo), and Bob Nwagoro churning out classical stories.
Patience Ozokwor who received high ovation at the award venue deserves the centenary award for her robust acting skills. But so do Orlando Martins (first Nigerian actor to be rated among England’s top best actors), Pete Edochie the quintessential actor whose outstanding interpretation of Okonkwo in the film adaptation of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart and numerous roles in countless home movies distinguish him as a towering icon among Nigerian artists, James Iroha (‘Gringory’) creator of the popular NTA sitcom “The Masquerade” that thrilled Nigerians for decades, the cherished cast and crew of “The Village Headmaster”, “Cockcrow at Dawn”, “Mirror in the Sun”, etc.
What about Mazi Mbonu Ojike whose pioneer advocacy of promoting indigenous cultures in Nigeria, developing the local content and patronizing home-made products which he dubbed “Boycott all Boycottables” earned him the sobriquet “the Boycott King”? Was he not considered fit for a centenary award? Ojike pioneered and performed as a voluntary service the same role National Orientation Agency (NOA) is performing at great cost with little impact.
Again, in the 12th category, “Bravery and Public Spiritedness”, is it not a national embarrassment that not one of the gallant serving or retired officers and men of the military and paramilitary forces (army, police, navy, air force, fire service, civil defense, FRSC, customs, immigration, SSS, etc) that daily risk their lives for other citizens and the nation was found fit for an award? Is it even logical that no institution whatsoever in Nigeria was given an award?
We could go on and on. It is these inconsistencies and glaring oversights occasioned by lack of adherence to merit and a manifest short memory that diminish national awards in Nigeria. Perhaps, the fact that the selection committee for the centenary award was trying to restrict the number of honorees to 100 may have affected the outcome of the selection but this cannot be a plausible defense for distorting history. But, if one may ask, what is so special about the number 100 if persons deserving of honours are more or less than that number? Should the gains of a worthy initiative be sacrificed on the alter of numerical exactitude and political expediency?
This has been the bane of national honours in Nigeria and a key reason for it’s depreciation over the years. Individuals whose selection defies logic are often bestowed with national honours because it serves a political purpose while the more deserving are passed over. Bestowing honours under the shadow of a national turmoil and eulogizing persons whose stewardship or integrity have been called to question has led to the rejection of national awards in the past. The centenary awards suffered the same fate: the families of MKO Abiola, Gani Fawehinmi, Fela Anikulapo Kuti and Prof Chinua Achebe all turned the centenary award down. In rejecting the award for which he was also short-listed Wole Soyinka wrote that he was declining to partake in a “national insult”.
The inevitable conclusion that can be drawn in the aftermath of the centenary awards is that bestowing awards in Nigeria has become a constant battle between politics and history. The circumspection which must necessarily attend this exercise in order to give it the public acceptability and dignity without which it becomes an exercise in futility is often observed in default.
For national honours to continue to make meaning in Nigeria, for the recipients of honours and awards to enjoy the respect and admiration of the general citizenry, the people must have confidence in the individuals being honoured. The process of determining who deserves or receives such honours must be made transparent and inclusive. Although the National Committee for National Honours and Awards periodically invites nominations from state governors and selected public and private agencies, the final list of persons short listed for national awards often fails to meet public expectations.
Aware of public angst over this issue, President Jonathan in 2012 threatened to withdraw any honours bestowed on questionable recipients. Defending the presentation of centenary awards to tainted persons in 2014, presidential spokesman, Dr. Reuben Abati stated that “The centenary award was not a test of sainthood.” Now, the question is, if the recipient of a national honour is deficient in integrity and cannot serve as a role model, why bestow an honour on him at all? It is such contradictions and manifest hypocrisy that damage the moral fibre of our national psyche and make our country a comic aberration in the eyes of the world. (uchebush@yahoo.com, 08051090050)
Barr. Uche Ohia writes from Owerri.