President Bola Tinubu has conferred national honors on at least 1,062 individuals, Nigerians and foreign nationals, living and posthumous, in nearly three years in office, according to findings by The PUNCH, ABNTV reports.
The number of conferments exceeds the total awarded by his immediate predecessor, the late President Muhammadu Buhari, in his entire eight years and is three times more than the conferment made by former President Goodluck Jonathan in his single major investiture of 2014.
Findings by our correspondent also show that the bulk of Tinubu’s honors were ratified on October 9, 2025, when the National Council of State, meeting at the Aso Rock Presidential Villa, Abuja, approved the report of the National Honors Award Committee for 2024 and 2025.
The Permanent Secretary, Cabinet Affairs Office, Dr. Emanso Umobong, told State House correspondents after the meeting that the committee, reconstituted in August 2021 under the chairmanship of Justice Sidi Bage, had screened over 5,000 nominations and recommended 824 recipients for the regular 2024/2025 National Honors and 135 individuals for special presidential awards, a combined 959 honorees.
Aside from the 2025 batch, the president has, on his own volition, conferred additional honors throughout the period. These include fallen and serving members of the Armed Forces.
On February 13, 2024, President Tinubu honored players and officials of the Nigerian Super Eagles with the Member of the Order of the Niger national awards for securing the silver medal at the 2023 Africa Nations Cup.
Tinubu, through the minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Mr. Nyesom Wike, also granted each team member a plot of land and a flat in the FCT.
On March 17, 2024, the president conferred varying national honors on 17 members of the Nigerian Army who were slain in Delta State on March 14, 2024.
He also announced the provision of housing facilities for the surviving family members and scholarships for all their children to the university level and the payment of death benefits to the family members within 90 days.
At the funeral of the late Chief of Army Staff, Lt Gen Taoreed Lagbaja, on November 15, 2024, Tinubu conferred the posthumous national honour of Commander of the Federal Republic on Lagbaja.
On January 15, 2026, at the Armed Forces Remembrance Day Celebration, Brig Gen Musa Uba, killed in a November 2025 ISWAP ambush in Damboa, Borno State, was conferred a posthumous Gallantry Award.
Similar decorations have been extended to dozens of other officers who paid the supreme sacrifice in counter-insurgency operations across the North-East and North-West.
On June 12, 2025, at a joint session of the National Assembly to mark the 26th Democracy Day, he announced posthumous and living national honours on over 80 democracy heroes, including Nobel Laureate, Prof Wole Soyinka (GCON), the late Kudirat Abiola (CFR), former Chief of Staff to the Supreme Headquarters Shehu Musa Yar’Adua (GCFR), Prof Humphrey Nwosu (CON), Ken Saro-Wiwa and the Ogoni Nine (OON each), Bishop Matthew Kukah (CON), Femi Falana, SAN (CON), and veteran journalist Sam Amuka-Pemu (CON).
Many of the honorees were also granted presidential pardons.
