Big Beef With JAK’s Awards

Yesterday, President Kufuor handed out national awards to selected citizens of Osagyefoland and most incredibly, there were enough of them to get around, so that everyone in town got one except one bloke-me.

I woke up this morning to find that I had grown red and pink whiskers where a man's moustache would normally be, and it is all out of sheer envy of the recipients.

That is why you may take my views about the awards as prejudiced crap from an embittered man. What do you expect a man to do when envy threatens to choke him dead, Jomo? Grumble, fret, throw up tantrums and raise the great hackles all about. That is what!

Amid the rumpus over the President's nominations for the awards, a friend from my home town who has not had the benefit of formal education asked what was stirring up all the commotion.

I told him it was about awards. “Awodz? Never heard of the chap. Who is he? What has he done wrong?”

I explained that the subject of the rumpus was not a “he”, but an “it” and that awards came in the form of medals presented by the President to selected citizens.

“You mean those things ex-service men wear?” “Why would anyone miss those things? Can one of them buy a loaf of bread?”

Award. It was the most repeated word in the media last week, thanks to fairly widespread criticism of  JAK's list, but like my good townsman, ordinary people had only the haziest idea what the fuss was all about.

I spent hours myself wondering how the President went about this business of identifying citizens deserving of national awards.

Did the President lock himself up in his office, sit at his desk and proceed to go meticulously through the last population census register identifying and ticking names according to his fancy?

Ah, here is Dr Dompreh's name. I hear the man is a patriotic physician doing a great job at Kenyasi Number One Hospital.  Well then, he gets an award. Tick.

Nana Quarcoopome. The name sounds familiar. That must be the fellow who calls every frequency modulation station in town every blessed morning to sing hosanna and other exquisite praises to my good name. He gets an award. Tick.

Ah, here are three aides and two advisors in a row. Tick, tick, tick… Kwame Kwabone? No way. The man had made a past time of disparaging my administration.

I very much doubt that, that is the way the president went about it but try telling that to some of those who have bitterly criticised the president's nominations.

It is most likely that recommendations for the awards were received by the president from advisors in various fields of endeavour. Questions arise regarding what informed the choices of the referees and advisors who fed JAK's nomination list.

Take careful note, Jomo: Criticism of the wards list is not a blanket one. It has been acknowledged that many citizens on JAK's list truly deserve the honours. It is the inclusion of many others that has provoked derisive snorts.

“Hey, what has this fellow done to deserve a national award, for Heaven's sake?” That was an echoing refrain.

Typical word and phrases which qualify anyone for national awards would include “excellent”, “very outstanding”, “out-of-the ordinary”, “ highly distinguished”, “very exceptional” “highly accomplished”, “of profound impact…”

National awards should not be so administered as to give the impression of being rewards for politically sectarian loyalty, with some deserving recipients and a few old time enemies thrown in for scheming measure.

The inclusion of National Democratic Congress front liners in the list promptly backfired, as questions were raised in some cases where the nominees had previously been denigrated by pro-establishment politicians and elements with a singular consistency.

Then too, should someone be given an award for having been elected or appointed to high political office? I don't know about you, Jomo, but it does not make sense to me at all.

Some African countries are moving to replace flawed national awards systems with standardised ones. A group of senators in the National Assembly in the Nigeria led by Senator Anthony Ago recently moved a bill in the house demanding a thorough review of the country's national awards system to reflect national aspiration to excellence.

Their collective view was that, “for a nation to achieve and sustain uninterrupted ascent on the ladder of progress and to consistently break new barriers, advance to new frontiers and keep pace with the speedy dynamics of scientific, political and economic identity of the ever evolving and advancing world, the principle and culture of reward and achievement must be elaborately institutionalised.”

Agbo and his colleagues are convinced that national awards presented by the Assembly , would “possess the inspirational strength, psychological inducement, depth, appeal, impact and dimension very close to the highest awards anywhere in the world.”

A National Awards Committee should select and publicly debate the meritorious qualifications of nominees for national wards, don't you think?

A citizen nominated for a national award for his contribution in any field of endeavour should be easily acknowledged by his peers in the field and the public as deserving of the honour.

Where the peers of a nominee and the public laugh at, ridicule or scoff at the nomination, you can bet that something is indeed amiss with the national awards system, yes sir.

Folks pointed that the awards list was one recipient too many, to which spin agents countered that it comprised only a couple of hundred citizens in a population of 20 million. Do you reckon national awards have or should have anything to do population and equity?

Methinks if only one individual from a particular area of public endeavour  is deserving of a national award in keeping with a standardised criterion for rewarding excellence and as many as ten citizens from another area qualify for awards, that should be it!

With George Sydney Abugri