THE House of Representatives yesterday debated and endorsed a bill seeking an amendment to the National Honours Act with a view to raising the integrity of the yearly national honours’ award.

It was the submission of the majority of the members that the quality, credibility and integrity of the exercise had fallen short of the kind of standards expected of it.

They agreed that the national honours should be based on extraordinary achievements instead of the existing tradition based on distinguished public service.

Sponsored by Femi Gbajabiamila (Lagos State, ACN), the bill, which has been referred to the House Committee on Governmental Affairs for more legislative processing, was unanimously endorsed for a second reading.

Leading the debate earlier, Gbajabiamila said the bill was principally aimed at:

• Restricting the national honours to 100 beneficiaries yearly;

• ensuring that two months to the award of the national honours, names of all beneficiaries are published in national papers for Nigerians to be fully aware of the nominated beneficiaries; and

• ensuring that the standard of the national honours is raised in such a way that people with extraordinary achievements are recognised and honoured.

In his contribution, Asita Honourable, a People’s Democratic Party (PDP) member from Rivers State, observed that the vices in the country, including corruption, were affecting the national honours’ award.

Nnenah Ukeje, a member of the PDP from Abia State lamented that the proliferation of the awards had become so high that some of the beneficiaries no longer command respect.

She suggested that the number of beneficiaries should be pegged at 40 yearly.

Chris Eta, a PDP member from Cross River State, was of the opinion that there was no reason for restricting the national honours’ awards to public officers, pointing out that some of the officers did not need them
http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=101837:reps-move-to-raise-national-honours-integrity-&catid=1:national&Itemid=559

100?!

100?! annually. If you give an award to 100 people a year no matter how many papers you post it in it'll be worthless.
That's 1000 people every 10 years. What if 1000 people received a noble prize?

Every year
Reduce the number of recipients to 20,award people every 10yrs.