Nig@50 awards: ‘Why we excluded Murtala, IBB, Gowon Buhari, Abacha’

ONE of the criteria that qualified former military heads of state, Generals Olusegun Obasanjo and Abdulsalami Abubakar to be among the 50 distinguished achievers for the Golden Jubilee Presidential Awards is because they voluntarily handed over power to a democratically elected governments in 1979 and 1999, respectively, President Goodluck Jonathan, has said. Jonathan gave the explanation, Thursday night, at the Banquet Hall of the Presidential Villa, Abuja during the conferment of distinguished achievements awards to 50 Nigerians in response to protests that trailed the exclusion of some former military heads of state like Murtala Ramat Mohammed, Muhammadu Buhari, Ibrahim Babangida, Sani Abacha and the head of the Interim National Government, Chief Earnest Shonekan.

Jonathan said that the process of selecting the 50 awardees for the honours was rigorous and competitive, noting that the five former Heads of State who were selected for the award was because of their individual, peculiar and unique contributions to the development of the country.

“I know that there were protests that some of our former leaders were not selected. I need to explain that some of the former heads of state were selected because of some unique achievements they made. ``We are not honouring them just because they are former heads of state but because of their unique contributions.

We are recognizing Abdulsalami Abubakar because as a military head of state, he handed over government to the civilian administration under one year which is rare in Africa. If he had wanted to continue, he would have done that but he decided to hand over to a civilian government.

“The selection of President Olusegun Obasanjo was unique because he received Biafra’s instrument of surrender after the civil war, while he also voluntarily handed over power to a civilian government. For that reason, he is being honored.