Honour To Whom It Is Due

Ostensibly exasperated by the grudging piecemeal recognition that has so far accorded our deserving sons and daughters who have distinguished themselves in all fields of human endeavour, Rivers State Governor, Chief Nyesom Wike had, during the State’s Golden Jubilee anniversary, last year, honoured some worthy individuals who have made the State proud.
Wike, appreciative of the blood, toil, sweat and sacrifices of these individuals that had hardly been recognised by past leaders, had at that occasion, promised to make the Honours Award an annual event to encourage them to do more, and others to emulate them.
In keeping with the promise, the governor, penultimate Tuesday, inaugurated a seven-member Rivers State Honours Advisory Committee with a charge to identify for honour, indigenes and non-indigenes who have made immense contributions to the development of the State.
The committee which has a prominent son of the State, Chief Ferdinand Anabraba as Chairman, has already swung into action, inviting nominations from the general public in such areas of human endeavour as peace promotion, voluntary, social welfare, community, State and national service. The nomination is also extended to various disciplines in the academia.
Notwithstanding the fact that the State has a cornucopia of talents in all fields of human endeavour, the honours to be bestowed on the deserving persons, Anabraba explained, would be strictly premised on merit as rightly directed by the governor. The Tide agrees no less.
We have a surfeit of heroes who are outstanding enough for societal recognition. But the task of truly searching for and honouring our finest, our brightest and our best is no mean one. It is like looking for a needle in a haystack! So, the task ahead of the Honours Committee is quite enormous, and the challenge of satisfying public expectations, great.
In a clime such as ours where many still believe that it is difficult to find saints among sinners, the State government’s bold and historic step in appreciating the labour of our heroes deserves rousing ovation.
Neither the setting nor the date for the Honours Award – May 29, 2018 – could have been more appropriate. For it was on that day last year that the debut edition of the historic and auspicious event took place amid pomp, pageantry and manifold emotions, as a critical part of our democratic rebirth after many needless years of military interregnum.
It is even more exhilarating that the honours are coming at a time when the nation is getting set to count the blessings of her nascent democracy.
Given the nation’s cold indifference towards its heroes, particularly Rivers indigenes, who have served meritoriously in all facets of life, the Rivers Honours Award could not have come at a more appropriate time. This is more so as the two national awards: the bastardised National Honours Awards and the more discriminatory Nigerian National Merit Awards have really not accorded our deserving sons and daughters due recognition.
The former is supposedly awarded in recognition of sterling contributions to public life and leadership, while the latter, the Nigerian National Merit Awards which attracts a cash prize, is in recognition of men and women of academic and intellectual distinction, who have made visible contributions to the improvement of their fatherland.
Yet, recipients of Rivers extraction, since the institution of these awards, remain insignificant, despite the immense contributions of the state and its finest persons to Nigeria’s socio-economic development.
Heroes, as it were, are a necessary beacon for all societies. They are the stuff from which history is written, folklores woven, and nations created. Thus, according due recognition to men of valour, men of integrity, and men with unflinching dedication to the society is a duty that calls for utmost carefulness, to avoid glorifying kleptocrats and mediocres in the process.
What this means is that only our distinguished citizens must be recognised as heroes and objects of veneration whom we must look up to again and again for inspiration without unduly romanticizing the past. This is because, they are illustrious precedence for lesser mortals to emulate.
It therefore, behooves the Rivers Honours Committee to do a thorough job and give honour to whom it is due. This would spur others to do more for societal growth and progress.