In a press statement signed by Comrade Iortyom Douglass Moses, National Secretary of the Workers and Youth Solidarity Network (WYSN), the group accused the Bola Tinubu-led administration of attempting to dilute a prestigious national institution that has honoured Nigeria’s brightest minds for over four decades.

A coalition of Nigerian workers and youth organisations has come out strongly against the Federal Government’s controversial move to merge the Nigerian National Merit Award (NNMA) with the National Honour Award, warning that such a step will erode the value of intellectual and academic excellence in Nigeria.

In a press statement signed by Comrade Iortyom Douglass Moses, National Secretary of the Workers and Youth Solidarity Network (WYSN), the group accused the Bola Tinubu-led administration of attempting to dilute a prestigious national institution that has honoured Nigeria’s brightest minds for over four decades.

“We, the Workers and Youth Solidarity Network (WYSN), strongly oppose the proposed merger of the Nigerian National Merit Award (NNMA) with the National Honour Award,” the statement reads.

“The NNMA is a prestigious award that recognises and rewards academic and intellectual excellence. Merging it with the National Honour Award, which has a broader and sometimes partisan focus, would undermine its integrity and credibility.”

The group warned that the move could encourage political interference and favouritism in what has long been regarded as Nigeria’s equivalent of the Nobel Prize.

“We are concerned that this merger would reduce the award to a token shared among political allies, rather than a genuine recognition of academic brilliance,” WYSN stated.

“The National Honour Award is often seen as a political reward system. Combining it with the NNMA will send a dangerous message to young scholars — that merit no longer matters.”

During a stakeholders’ engagement held at Room 201 of the National Assembly on Wednesday, May 21, 2025, Mrs Mercy Matilda Musa Moro’a, Acting Secretary of the NNMA, gave further insight into the importance of the award and the dangers of undermining it.

“The Nigerian National Merit Award (NNMA) is a Category A Federal Parastatal committed to stimulating and rewarding intellectual, academic, and professional excellence for national development,” she stated.

Musa Moro’a cited the enabling NNMA Act No. 53 of 1979, later amended by Act No. 96 of 1992, which places the award on a statutory pedestal, distinct from any other honours in the country.

“The NNMA confers the Nigerian National Order of Merit (NNOM), which is Nigeria’s highest honour for intellectual and academic achievement. The award has only been conferred on 79 Nigerians since inception, and only 39 are still alive today,” she noted.

She added that the selection process is merit-based and blind, with assessments conducted by expert panels in science, medicine, engineering, technology, and the humanities — a rigorous process not found in the National Honour Award system.

The WYSN insisted that political motives must not swallow such a historic and elite institution.

“This Award is not for sale. It is not for politicians. It is the only one that has kept academic excellence alive in Nigeria. The attempt to merge it is part of a broader capitalist agenda to destroy meritocracy,” the group warned.

They also called on key labour institutions to resist the move.

“We call on the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) to immediately intervene and resist this anti-intellectual merger. We must defend the dignity of academic labour.”