Commentary

Misuse of our National Honours

By D. A. Jawo

Once upon a time, being the recipient of one of our prestigious National Honours such as the National Officer of the Order of the Republic of The Gambia (ORG) etc, was the wish and pride of every Gambian. However, that unfortunately is no longer the case. Why! The answer simply is that the awards have been so over-used and abused that they seem to have lost all their ecstatic value and prestige and as such, they now seem to be reserved mainly for die-hard supporters of the ruling party as well as sycophants and the regime’s praise singers, and as a result, most decent Gambians no longer want anything to do with them.

Recently for instance, we have seen how about 400 people were nominated for the awards at one go, quite an unprecedented number for whatever reason to be given national honours in just one year. At this rate, more than half the country would become recipients within the next five years, and that alone is enough to make the awards lose whatever intrinsic values they ever had.

While there is obviously no doubt that some of the recipients of these awards deserve such honours, it is a well known fact that the vast majority of them are being paid for their unflinching support for the regime rather than what they might have contributed to Gambia’s national development.

There are of course so many other Gambians who deserve those awards far much more than many of those who have received them, but we all know that most of those deserving Gambians will never get them because they happen to be on the wrong side of the powers that be, or maybe, they have not displayed enough sycophancy to find themselves on the list.

For instance, there is no Gambian who deserved a post-humus award more than the late Dr Lenrie Peters, who voluntarily returned to The Gambia in the 1970s after graduating as a medical doctor on a private scholarship in the United Kingdom. While here, he chose to work for the Medical and Health Department at Bansang Hospital in the most trying circumstances, and he also died serving humanity in this country.

There are also several other Gambians who diligently served this country as farmers, teachers, nurses, and indeed in various other capacities, but whose immense contribution to national development has never been acknowledged.

Yet, we have seen people whose only contribution to this country had been to compete for being the most prominent sycophants and praise singers being honoured as being the most patriotic this country has ever seen.

Of course, President Yahya Jammeh and his National Awards Committee (if ever such a thing still exists in this country), reserve the power and prerogative to give the awards to anyone of their choice, but it is extremely important that they are guided by much broader basic criteria rather than mere support for the regime. It is quite inconceivable, for instance, that those who support the opposition, are also Gambians and there is no doubt that many of them have made some positive contributions to the development of this country. Therefore, the fact that no known member or supporter of the opposition has been among the award recipients speaks volumes of the criteria used in choosing those that deserve an award.