Of Award Recipient and Gangsterism. OCTOBER 13, 2022
If you don't want an award for any reason imaginable, reject it, decline the offer, or send a private or public note to indicate the grounds for your decision. And that would be most honorable by any standard.
A national award is not a trophy given after an event or sporting competition, which you're entitled to as of right. With regard to an award, you are not entitled to it. It is given at the will or discretion of the Presidency. So, you're not under any compulsion to accept it or attend the award ceremony. Reject it outright, and you would be celebrated.
Walking there, receiving the award, and walking away without acknowledging the presence of the President or exhibiting a modicum of reverence for him as an elder, even if you don't accept him as your President, didn't denigrate the office or the man who offered the award, but it cast you as rudely uncultured.
You can't decline a handshake, despise the man and his office, but went away with his award. That's morbidly hypocritical. Like it or not, he's still the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and he deserves our respect.
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