When in 2004, Professor Chinua Achebe, literary giant , rejected Olusegun Obasanjo government’s offer of a national award, I thought then that both the nomination and the rejection of it were questionable. I agree that governments have a prerogative to give awards to whomever they judge as deserving. Just as nominees also, as Achebe, reserve the right to reject them. My misgivings were to do with the government’s unstated but easily deductible motives for giving him the award and, secondly, about Achebe’s stated reasons for rejecting it.
There are inconsistencies as I will show later which, though are not his fault, nevertheless exposed Achebe to charges of pandering if he had accepted the awards or, as it happened when he did not accept them, to charges that he lacks patriotism and, as presidential spokesman Rueben Abati implied, of playing to the gallery. In other words, Achebe was damned if he accepted the awards and damned that he did not. Such is the nature of Grecian gifts.
Achebe’s nomination in 2004 presumably was not for previous literary work, which, unless the government wanted to open itself up to charges of overkill, the country had duly rewarded with national honours in 1960, 1979 and 1999. I was the proudest living young Nigerian when, on a visit to Nigeria in 1978, then American President Jimmy Carter announced that he had read Things Fall Apart. Neither, presumably also, could the nomination be for services rendered to Nigeria because, after the country had rewarded the professor with the patriotic Order of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (OFR) in 1979 he, as many other conscientious exiles, decided to live and serve outside the country. Something that, to make clear, is perfectly within their right to do. In Professor Achebe’s case, it was understandably after the 1983 election fiasco and after a car crash in 1990 that nearly claimed his life.
We must therefore conclude that Olusegun Obasanjo’s government in 2004 merely wanted to exploit the integrity and global popularity of Achebe, in the hope that some of it would rub on. More importantly, they hoped that Achebe would stop giving globally aired criticism of their visionless administration. They also expected to harvest a large ethnic hero-worshipping population, this time mainly of Igbo stock because Achebe is Igbo, into their political game. That award was a bribe and it is a surprise that Achebe did not see it as such or, if he did, said nothing to the fact. If on the other hand and as I suspect, Achebe meant his grateful acknowledgment of previous national awards to convey that sense, it did not go far enough.
Another candidate, Minority Leader of the House of Representatives Femi Gbajabiamila, turned down his own 2011 Honours nomination. He was the first to do so, even before Professor Achebe. Gbajabiamila is a well-known critic of the honours system and two years ago introduced a bill to sanitise the scheme, by law. Apparently, in the eyes of Aso Rock, there is a need to pacify a man like Gbajabiamila. However, in a damning criticism of the honours scheme, the honourable member wrote to President Goodluck Jonathan to reject his invitation to the OFR, saying he disapproved of the selection criteria. He also, surprisingly for a Nigerian politician, said he did not think he was worthy of the honour, yet!
Gbajabiamila argued that national awards should be for only those who made concrete contributions to the development of the country, a standard that, if applied scrupulously to the last twenty years, would exclude people like him (Gbajabiamila), numerous other recipients resident in Nigeria, Achebe, and many others in exile. He declared that Presidents ought not to dole out national awards as a favour to him (Gbajabiamila) or, as evident in Achebe’s case, a bribe for political support.
Professor Chinua Achebe, unlike many other members of our chattering class, has built a reputation for blunt speaking that takes no prisoners. Appropriately timed critiques from him, for example during Nigeria’s 50th birthday, made our governments look up and listen. Apart from a well-publicised visit in 2008 to his kinsmen to celebrate fifty years of his acclaimed book, Things Fall Apart, Achebe has kept a conspicuous distance from Nigeria’s celebrity circuit of champagne social justice crusaders. It is a clear body language; one that says the learned professor is in trench warfare with Nigeria’s rulers. It is also, what makes the motives for offering the OFR to Chinua Achebe, again in 2011, deeply suspect.
There is a perception that, as Obasanjo in 2004, Jonathan’s offer is also basically, a bribe to gain Chinua Achebe’s political support.
Many crusaders before Achebe have refused nomination to honours. Administrations in Nigeria have studiously withheld honours from some that transparently deserved it. Many also have returned well-deserved awards, to make their point. One of the greatest Nigerians that ever lived, the late Dr. Francis Akanu Ibiam, like Achebe, an Igbo, did not mince his words when he returned an impressive and well-earned complement of awards to the Queen of Great Britain. People like Gani Fawehinmi and Tai Solarin, real prophets of social justice, were brazenly denied ‘honours in their own town’, in Solarin’s case including even withholding Nigerian citizenship from his British-born wife, Sheila, for more than five decades; a woman who has been teacher, mentor and mother to countless illustrious and other Nigerians.
In June this year, thugs in Ibadan killed Mr. Auwal Shanono, a 500 level medical student of Ahmadu Bello University and National President of the Nigeria Medical Students’ Association, in the midst of senseless murders that now characterise Oyo state politics. Auwal Shanono, a northerner, is a symbol of Nigeria’s quest for unity. They murdered him, while he was trying to forge that unity—he is a martyr.
These are just a few examples of million others that contributed ‘in concrete terms’ to Nigeria’s development. While our rulers find it hard to honour such people or their memories, they pile awards on underserving cronies, and attempt to corrupt people like Professor Achebe with political gifts disguised as national honours. Achebe does well to keep his distance from Nigeria’s insincere crusaders but, more than ever, we need leaders who can and will speak truth—the whole truth and nothing but the truth—to our rulers.
The learned professor may also have boxed himself into a corner with the conditions he gave for refusing the awards because there will be questions about when Achebe will consider Nigeria good enough, peaceful enough, prosperous enough, united enough, to accept an award.
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