Leadnaija
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has conferred a national honour of Officer of the Order of the Niger (OON) on Labaran Maku, former Minister of Information and Supervising Minister of Defence, raising questions about the integrity and record-keeping processes of Nigeria’s national honours system.
2019 Campaign Poster of Maku bearing his CON Award
The award, conferred on Thursday during a ceremony at the Presidential Villa in Abuja, comes over a decade after Maku was honoured with a more prestigious Commander of the Order of the Niger (CON) in 2014 by former President Goodluck Jonathan.
Maku’s 2014 CON award is clearly documented. At the time, he was an active minister in Jonathan’s cabinet and gearing up to contest the Nasarawa State governorship election under the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Speaking to journalists after the honour was bestowed, Maku said the award was a recognition of his service and would boost his campaign prospects.
Redundant Recognition
A 2014 campaign flyer obtained by Politics Nigeria shows Maku prominently displaying the “CON” title next to his name—an indication that the honour was neither ceremonial nor symbolic. By protocol, CON is Nigeria’s fourth-highest national honour, following the GCFR, GCON, and CFR.
The newly awarded OON sits two levels below CON in the hierarchy of honours, making the current conferment not just redundant, but procedurally questionable. According to the National Honours Act of 1964, which governs the award system, a recipient of a higher rank automatically forfeits any lower-ranking title within the same Order. The Act is clear on promotions within the honours hierarchy: once a higher award is received, the holder must return the insignia of the lower one and cease to use its initials.
However, it remains silent on reverse appointments—instances where a recipient is honoured with a lower award after previously receiving a higher one.
A Recurring Flaw in the Honours Process
This is not the first such incident under Tinubu’s administration. Foundation for Investigative Journalism (FIJ) previously reported that Professor Bolaji Akinyemi, Nigeria’s former Minister of Foreign Affairs, was again listed as a recipient of the Commander of the Federal Republic (CFR) honour—14 years after President Jonathan had already conferred the same award on him.
These back-to-back discrepancies suggest a fundamental lapse in the honours vetting system. By law, the responsibility for maintaining and verifying the national honours record falls under the purview of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF). The SGF’s office is expected to maintain a comprehensive database of past recipients to avoid such redundancies.
Yet, neither the Office of the SGF nor the Presidency has issued a clarification on these errors. Maku himself has remained silent on the downgraded honour.
Legal Grey Area
Legal analysts say while the National Honours Act prohibits a recipient from holding two ranks of the same Order simultaneously, it does not explicitly forbid a downgrade. “The spirit of the law is clear,” said Barrister Yemi Adeyemi, a constitutional lawyer based in Abuja. “Honours are meant to be progressive and cumulative, not retrogressive.”
“What we’re seeing is either a clerical blunder or a systemic failure in the administration of honours. Either way, it undermines the credibility of the national awards process,” he added.
Conclusion
As questions mount over the integrity of the national honours system, observers say it is time for the SGF’s office to overhaul its verification processes and issue corrections where necessary. Whether the Tinubu administration will acknowledge and address the error remains to be seen.
Meanwhile, Maku remains the only known Nigerian to have been awarded both CON and OON—albeit in reverse order.
