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The recent sacking of the Inspector General of
Police, Ogbonnaya Onovo, again brings to the fore the debate about the
real value of Nigeria’s National Honours.

Mr. Onovo was given the honour in July, only to be
unceremoniously sacked six weeks later. At the time he was given the
award, a correspondent from this paper asked him if he thought he
deserved the honour given the appalling security situation in the
country.

An angry Mr. Onovo replied: “Answer [the question]
for yourself. You are a member of the public. If I don’t deserve it, say
so. I can’t answer stupid questions, because insecurity is all over the
world. There is no society where there is no crime. You can’t tell me
of any society, if you know one, tell me. So, I think it is not a proper
question and I will not answer it. “You have come to provoke. You
haven’t come to ask questions as journalists who want to know and who
want to disseminate information. Your question has spoilt my happy
mood.” When one however considers that the list of honorees included
Patricia Etteh, former Speaker of the House of Representatives, who was
forced to resign following allegations of financial mismanagement, it
becomes clear why Mr. Onovo harboured no reservations regarding his
receipt of the award.

When Mr. Onovo snapped at our reporter for
“spoiling” his mood, little did he know that an even more potent
mood-spoiler was in the horizon. After an unremarkable stint as
Inspector-General, marked by Boko Haram and the overrunning of South
eastern Nigeria by kidnappers, Mr. Onovo was removed. He has now gone
into the record books as the shortest serving Inspector General in the
history of the Nigeria Police Force.

The sack notwithstanding, he gets to keep a
renowned national honour, earned at the height of his infamy. (We should
point out that in 2006 he had previously bagged the Officer of the
Order of the Niger award).

In May this year, the international rights group,
Reporters without Borders, named Mr. Onovo one of world’s “40 predators
of the press”. By the time he left office Mr. Onovo had also built a
reputation as a serial disobeyer of court orders. In a profile of Mr.
Onovo by this paper, following the expiration of the tenure of his
predecessor, Mike Okiro, we noted that “[Onovo] was in charge of the
inconclusive investigation of the killing of Funsho Williams, a People’s
Democratic Party Governorship candidate in Lagos State.” President
Jonathan needs to be told that what has just happened with Mr. Onovo
cannot but inflict grave damage on the reputation of the National
Honours, a reputation already battered by the rejection of the awards in
recent years by such distinguished Nigerians as Gani Fawehinmi (Order
of the Federal Republic, 2008) and Chinua Achebe (Commander of the
Federal Republic, 2004).

The tradition of awarding National Honours to
serving political office holders and bureaucrats simply on the strength
of the offices they hold is wrong, and should be stopped forthwith.
National Honours should only be conferred on the basis of integrity,
outstanding career achievement and selfless service to the nation, not
on the basis of political office.

A look at the scandals that have trailed some of
the occupiers of the post of Inspector-General in recent years is enough
to convince any right thinking person that being the country’s number 1
cop is in no way a guarantee of honesty and integrity. National Honours
ought to be earned and never merely given. Mrs. Etteh, like Mr. Onovo,
and many other names on that list, were honoured simply because they
occupied certain positions; they did nothing to earn it.

Based on current tradition, we imagine that the new
Inspector-General of Police has automatically earned himself a place in
next year’s Honours List, regardless of his record. This is a travesty
of the meritocracy that the mechanism guiding the annual awards should
be.

We want the Federal Government to bring utmost
transparency to the nominating, short-listing and screening process. How
truly open is the nominating process? What role does the Presidency –
and specifically the President – play in the short-listing process? In
what situations or circumstances is a person liable to be disqualified?

If no real reform takes place regarding the annual
national awards, a time is coming when they will not be worth the paper
bearing the citations of the recipients. Indeed there are those who will
even argue that time is already here.