The communication team of multiple award-winning Nigerian author, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, has been explaining why the celebrated writer did not turn up to receive her national honour on Tuesday.
President Muhammadu Buhari had approved the conferment of the Order of the Federal Republic (OFR) national honour on the literary icon who was recently decorated with Harvard University’s iconic W.E.B. Du Bois Medal. But the writer was conspicuously absent at the conferment ceremony on Tuesday, October 11, 2022, where 450 Nigerians and foreigners were honoured.
But in a report, The Guardian, Nigeria, newspaper quoted a member of Chimamanda’s communications team, Omawumi Ogbe, as saying that the internationally acclaimed writer declined the honour.
In a statement, Ogbe said: “Following the recent conferment of national awards by the President, there have been conflicting reports about one of the announced recipients, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Some social media users say the award-winning writer rejected the award, while others say she accepted it.
“The author did not accept the award and, as such, did not attend the ceremony. She, however, did not want to create undue publicity around it, so her non-acceptance was conveyed privately,”
Ogbe, however, did not disclose the reason why Chimamanda rejected the award.
The Guardian, in the report, recalled that while conferring the awards on 450 Nigerians and foreigners, President Muhammadu Buhari had justified the honours, saying the awardees had distinguished themselves in the service of the nation and humanity.
“We have among the recipients today, Amb. Prof. Tjjani Muhammad-Bande, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo- Iweala, Ms. Amina J. Mohammed and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, who are doing our country proud on the international scene,” the President said. “Our dear sisters are a source of inspiration to our young women that through the dint of hard work and dedication, they can achieve greatness.”
However, this would not be the first time an awardee will turn down a national honour from a Nigerian president.
The world-acclaimed Nigerian literary giant and author of Things Fall Apart, the late Prof. Chinua Achebe, rejected the national honours award in 2004 and 2011, triggering national umbrage at that time.
Achebe said he rejected the Commander of the Order of the Federal Republic (CFR) award because he was dissatisfied with the handling of the country’s affairs by the Olusegun Obasanjo administration. In 2011, Achebe rejected the same award from the Goodluck Jonathan administration, saying the reasons for rejecting the offer when it was first made in 2004 had not been addressed.
Similarly, foremost human rights activist and lawyer, the late Chief Gani Fawehinmi also rejected the Officer of the Order of the Federal Republic (OFR) conferred on him in 2008 by the Umaru Yar’Adua administration.