14th March, 2012
The 64th edition of the Kwame Nkrumah Leadership Award on Peace Advocacy and Community Development Par-excellence has been conferred on a Lagos lawmaker, Abdulbaq Ladi-Balogun, a year after the award was given to Chief Afe Babalola, a legal icon in the country.
He got the award for his total commitment to intra-religious, grassroots development educational activities.
Ladi-Balogun, who said he had been challenged by the award, said that the honour was predicated on the fact that there is always reward for hard work in every human endeavour.
According to him, “when the nomination form came to me, I received it with great surprise and I asked myself what I had done to deserve the award, and again I started recounting what I have done in the private sector when I was not a public figure that could have earned me this award.
“I am happy this is not a memorial award because it is bestowed on me while I am still alive.
“The award came from West-Africa Students Union (WASU), the body which I respect so much because it is a credible body and the nomination normally comes from the representatives of the students union.
“When I was doing all these, I didn’t know that the reward will easily turn out like this, and I want to believe that these are what the people of my constituency saw when they propelled me to vie for a seat in the Lagos state House of Assembly to represent them.”
He used the opportunity to call on youths in the country not to see student unionism as an end in itself but a means to an end and “that shows that if you want to become a good leader tomorrow, you have to start exhibiting goodness right from now.”
The Commissioner for Transport in the state, Kayode Opeifa, who was a guest at the event, urged WASU to help resolve the crisis within the National Association of Nigerians Students (NANS), which has created factions among them.
According to him, “if indeed NANS is under WASU, then the issue must be resolved with utmost urgency.”
—Eromosele Ebhomele