By Chidi Anselm Odinkalu
At the beginning of August 2022, President Muhammadu Buhari constituted a nine-member National Honours Nominations Committee with a four-year tenure. It is chaired by Alhaji Sidi Muhammad Bage, the senior judge who resigned from Nigeria’s Supreme Court in 2019 to become the Emir of Lafia in Nasarawa State.
The
Minister for Special Duties and Inter-Governmental Affairs, George Akume,
inaugurated the committee on September 16 with the mandate “to screen and
select eminent Nigerians and friends of Nigeria, who have contributed to the
development of the country.”
In what would have been a record of unprecedented efficiency in the annals of such committees, a list emerged a mere fortnight later of recipients of national honours. Among the recipients, it listed the Emir of Lafia, himself the newly inaugurated chair of the National Honours Committee, for one of the highest honours – Commander of the Federal Republic (CFR).
