The Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) yesterday called for the withdrawal of the honorary doctorate degrees given to Akwa Ibom State Governor Godswill Akpabio and Petroleum Minister Diezani Alison-Madueke by the Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA) in September.
The call, according to the party, is to preserve the tradition of the institution and the integrity of the awards.
In a statement in Lagos by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party said after a painstaking research on the NDA awards, it has found out that the two awardees do not deserve to be honoured by the foremost military institution, going by its tradition.
''We found out that all past honorees have made direct contributions to the NDA, and were thus deserving of the honours bestowed on them by the military institution. But the same cannot be said of Akpabio and Mrs. Alison-Madueke.
''We are therefore compelled to ask the authorities at the NDA to recall the awards so as not to compromise the tradition and antecedent of the NDA as a military institution,'' it said. ''These people may have recorded some achievements in their own rights, but they are not known to have contributed anything to the growth of the NDA.''
ACN listed deserving past honorees as including Prof. Ukpabi Asika, the first provost of the NDA who oversaw the institution's transition to a degree-awarding institution in 1991, former Defence Minister Theophilus Danjuma and former President Olusegun Obasanjo.
''Prof. Asika (not to be confused with the former Administrator of the defunct East-Central states), despite his huge contributions to the growth of NDA, was not honoured until 2008, years after his retirement. No one can contest the honour done to him by the institution he served so diligently.
''Gen. Danjuma, as Minister of Defence, intervened to preserve the French language laboratory at the NDA. Added to his well-known contribution to the military, he is deserving of the NDA honour
''For Gen. Obasanjo, no matter what anyone may say, his contribution to the military cannot be ignored. So, any honour bestowed on him by the NDA is well deserved,'' the party said.
It said there are other Nigerians who have contributed immensely to NDA's development but are yet to be honoured, listing some of them as David Ejoor and Adeyinka Adebayo, both past commandants of the NDA.
''If deserving Nigerians like Ejoor and Adebayo have not been honoured by the NDA despite their contributions to the institution, one can therefore reasonably question the motive of the authorities at the NDA in bestowing their much-cherished honors on people who have neither made any direct contributions to the institution nor even complete, unscathed, their duties as elected or appointed political office holders.
''It is this kind of hurried and questionable recognition of serving political office holders, many of who may later turn out to be undeserving of the honours bestowed on them, that has helped to degrade once-respected honours in Nigeria, and the NDA must not toe that path,'' ACN said.
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