COLUMN

THE 2025  'NATIONAL' HONORS AWARD LIST AND THE ROAD TO 2027

By Sadiq Ibrahim Dasin Esq 

Nigerians are under a duty to ensure that this democracy does not perish from our land. Therefore when the president begins to falter by pursuing policies inimical to national unity, fair representation of ethnic groups and regions in his government, and when a president corners and limits distribution of resources to a particular region to the exclusion of other regions in the country, and when a president pursues the domination of government and its agencies by a particular ethnic or regional group, then the time has come for him to be stopped. 

We have to therefore raise the red flags as early warning signals so as to stop the president from laying dangerous precedents that may consume us all. This is what patriotic citizens do all over the world by keeping their leaders in check and to hold them accountable to the people.  

Of the many economic, social and political problems visited on Nigerians by the president Tinubu administration in the last two years, non is more dangerous than what is contained in the beautifully crafted speech the president read before the joint session of the National Assembly in commemoration of the 2025 Democracy Day on June 12. 

What he said in that speech which is quite contrary to what he does has added one more reason why we need to stop him from continuing as president beyond 2027. 

This national honors award list has further laid bare, this president's nepotistic and divisive politics never before seen in this nation. In that speech, Mr. president not only insulted all that democracy stand for, but he brazenly threw away principles of inclusivity in a multi ethnic, multi lingual, multi religious and multi geopolitically zoned Nigeria, by doing what only a regional or sectional leader would do.

This is so because whereas most Nigerians have taken the annulment of the June 12, 1993 election as a national calamity and a political disaster visited on all of us by Gen. Babangida in pursuit of his dubious transition program and for which Babangida had since taken full responsibility; and whereas the people who cast their ballots that gave victory to Chief MKO Abiola in 1993 did so irrespective of region or religion, president Tinubu is only interested in reopening healed wounds and vilifying the parents of Nigerians outside his region and tribe by telling us thot the rest of us are monsters and that his people are saints. 

Otherwise how else could any body interpret the meaning of the list of the people president Bola Tinubu conferred with posthumous and antemortem national honours who have, according to him “…made sacrifices in the past, braving the odds and the guns to ensure we have a regime of democracy in our country?". 

First, in their characteristics sloppiness in preparing the list, the presidency wrongly put living people under Posthumous Honours category. Though they have apologised for that later, I am not in the least surprised nor am I bothered about it. 

What I am bothered about as a true Nigerian and a northerner from the north east geopolitical zone of this country, is that in drawing this national honors list the president has left me in no doubt that what majority of Nigerians are saying about the nepotistic nature of his administration is not mere perception but actually a reality.

Foremost in my mind is the list from the Niger Delta area of the south south geopolitical zone. For the first time in the history of this zone, the people are being hoodwinked and taken for a ride. Almost 100% of those in the list from the zone, made the list just to beep up sentiment of the people of the area to vote APC in 2027 inspite of the fact that the south south is a PDP area.

I have noticed also that people from the zone who made the list are mostly those killed, maimed or incarcerated during Abacha. But thank God president Goodluck Jonathan, Sen. Seriake Dickson and Governor Diri Douye are alive. These patriotic Niger Deltans cannot be hoodwinked by later day lovers of Delta people. After all, Niger Delta people have received virtually nothing from this government in two years while the people cannot forget that it was president Yar'adu who introduced the Amnesty Prgramme for the Niger Deltans and it was president Buhari who awarded contract for clean up of Ogoni land of the Niger Delta. "Karya fure take". Lies flowers only. It does not fruit. 

And by the way, how, if I may ask, would the people of Rivers state in the Niger Delta forget in 2027, that their entire government was removed in one fell swoop in one bogus emergency rule that gives Abuja direct access to their state's resources?  

The names on the national honors list cannot also be justified by the numbers, names and geopolitical zones from where the awardees come from. Please check this out. 

ZONAL AWARDEES

- South West:- 35 people

- South South: -26 people

- South East:   -12 people 

- North West:  -15 people

- North Centr: - 11 people 

- North East :  - 03 people

Other than painting some geopolitical zones black despite the positive roles their people played in ensuring that Chief MKO Abiola won the June 12 presidential election and to deliberately stand history on its head, I don’t see any reason for the nepotistic manner in which the president awarded national honours to those who “… made sacrifices in the past, braving the odds and the guns to ensure we have a regime of democracy in our country" with far less northern people than their counterparts from the south. 

In fact judging from the zonal distribution of this 'national' honors award, southern Nigeria: has 73 people (74%) while the north has 29 people or 29%. 

Secondly how can anybody justify having 35 people from the south west alone which is the president's own zone, a figure more than that of the entire 19 states of the north that has just 29 people? 

And how come my zone, the north east, has only 3 people on the honors list? You can't justify that. 

For instance I was a staff of Habib Bank at Post Office road, Kano when June 12, 1993 presidential election took place. In this election, the late MKO Abiola actually defeated a northerner, an indigene of Kano, Alhaji Bashir Tofa. I can testify that Kano and Jigawa states voted massively for late Abiola. He won both states and even defeated Alh. Bashir Tofa in his polling unit at Gandun Albasa area of Kano. This happned because of the effective leadership of Sule Lamido and Abubakar Rimi. In fact Lamido was national secretary of the SDP, the party on whose horse Chief Abiola rode to victory. Yet, both Abubakar Rimi and Sule Lamido did not make president Tinubu’s list of those “who have made sacrifices in the past, braving the odds and the guns to ensure we have a regime of democracy in our country”.

In fact in Jigawa state, because of Sule Lamido, Abiola got 138,552 votes (60.7%) to defeat Tofa who scored 89, 836 votes (39.3%). 

In the North East where Alhaji Babagana Kingibe and Waziri Atiku Abubakar come from, we have only three awardees of the national honour from the entire zone of six states. Nuhu Ribadu from Adamawa, YZ Ya'u from Bauchi and Bagauda Kaltho from Kaltungo in Gombe state. 

Babagana Kingibe was Chief Abiola's running mate and a key figure in the election that he and Abiola won together. But Kingibe was not included in the list. Former Vice President Waziri Atiku abubakar is also not on the list. Waziri Atiku it was who stepped down for Abiola in the 1993 SDP primary election in Jos when the election was to go for a second ballot to determine a winner.

It is on record that in the first ballot at the primary election that took place in Jos, Abiola received 3,617 votes, Kingibe got 3,255 and Atiku scored 2,066 votes. By the SDP’s constitution even though Abiola scored the highest number of votes in the first round balloting, he did not secure sufficient votes to give him outright victory. So a second ballot was to be taken between the three of them to determine a clear winner. It was then Atiku was prevailed upon by Gen. Shehu Musa Yar’ad to step down for Abiola. 

Waziri complied in obeisance to Gen. Yar’adua, his political mentor, and for Atiku's sacrifice to the cause of sending the military back to their barracks and usher in democracy and freedom. 

If Waziri Atiku had refused and stepped down for Kingibe, a fellow north easterner instead, Atiku's 2,066 votes would have been added to Kingibe’s 3,255 votes. That would have done it for Kingibe and there wouldn’t have been an Abiola in the first place, much less of a June 12 struggle which later day saints are pontificating. Yet Atiku did not make the list of those who Tinubu called  “... made sacrifices in the past, braving the odds and the guns to ensure we have a regime of democracy in our country”. What an insult.

From the same north east came Mall. Adamu Ciroma from Yobe state. Even though a chieftain of the NRC, the party that was defeated by the Abiola/Kingibe ticket, he was the first northerner to declare that Chief MKO Abiola won the election “fair and square.” But his name did not also make the list.

Then there was Col. Abubakar Dagiwa Umar from Kebbi state, then a serving army Colonel and Commander of Armoured Corps Center and School when June 12, 1993 presidential election was annulled. The fearless army Colonel, a northerner, risked his military career and his life for Abiola by vehemently opposing the annulment of the election. Even though still in uniform then, Dangiwa started looking for support within the army for installing the elected president M.K.O. Yet, for whatever reason, Dangiwa's name did not make the list.

The nepotism is damn too much. We need to talk about it in order to save democracy. A president who came to power with more votes from the north-west than from the south-west, his home zone, has forgotten. But history never forgets. 

Projects are not cited here. Moneys are spent in the south west and political appointments is their birthright. We have been warned not to even complain as on election day, the north will be so much hungry that pasta and indomie noodles with bring out our votes.

It is not only for the north west, north central, south south, or even my north east that got only three awardees to be threatened when we complain. No. The south east has complained about the brazen nepotism of this government. But to no avail. For while I am yet to come to terms with why Ogun state alone has 4 ministers and that the entire southeast zone has only 5, and even the 5 are ministers of state, then came this national embarrassment in which the entire south east has only 12 awardees.

With these kind of happenings, one can only imagine what would happen to the rest of us if the same thing continues in the next two years or, if in the unlikely event the APC wins the presidency in 2027. Your guess will only be as good as mine on the situation would be in 6 years time. 

For me, I have made up my mind on what to do in 2027.  Whether you make up yours or not is up to you. 

The choice is yours.