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Nnaji, Osofisan, two others named 2004 national merit award winners
By Val Amanze,
and Tunde Abatan ( Lagos )
From Daily Independent
December 2nd, 2004

Four Nigerian scholars have emerged as the winners of this years' national merit awards, which would be conferred on them by President Olusegun Obasanjo on December 15 in Abuja .

Announcing the outcome of the selection and nomination for this year, Chairman, Governing Board, Nigerian National Merit Award, Professor Anya O Anya, said that this years recipients emerged having been seen to make exceptional achievement in academic and intellectual endeavours, which are adjudged as having impacted positively on national development.
He said the awards entitle recipients to use the acronym NNOM after their names.

This years recipients according to the chairman are: Professor Bartholomew Okechukwu Nnaji, an engineer who is known internationally for his work in robotics in which he is a recognized world authority; Professor Abiodun Francis Oluwole, a nuclear physicist whose pioneering research in nuclear energy and techniques and leadership of multidisciplinary teams had contributed to the application of nuclear analytical techniques in providing answers to a variety of problems of national relevance in geology, the environment and human health; Professor Soji Frederick Oluwole, a medical doctor who's significant research in transplant medicine and research has contributed towards understanding of the mechanism involved in the problem of graft rejection in transplant surgery especially in cellular and humoral immunity. His worldwide recognition and respect has been utilized to facilitate the training of talented young Nigerians in transplant surgery; and Professor Babafemi Adeyemi Osofisan, playwright, poet and dramatist, whose versatility, robustness and richness of his many talents as a creative artist and scholar has been widely acknowledged with honors and awards in Nigeria and abroad.

Speaking further on the awards, professor Anya described the awards as an order of merit anchored only on the ultimate value of excellence, and excellence alone and which has no levels of award and only equivalent to the higher levels of the other two Orders of Dignity namely the Order of the Federal Republic and the Order of the Niger adding that the order of merit is therefore a distinct order and is not part of the national honors.

The chairman said his explanation became necessary so as to clear up what he described as the confusion which has been fostered by the press on which afterwards is part of the national honors and which's merit award adding that the N.N.O.M was specifically established by the Nigerian law to recognize and reward excellence in academic and intellectual achievement in the Nigerian state.