Recently updated on October 24th, 2022 at 03:52 pm
Professor Yemi Osinbajo has conferred the 2017 Nigerian National Order of Merit (NNOM) award on Professor Adesoji Adesina and Mr. Bruce Onobrakpeya at the Council Chamber of the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
85 -year-old Professor Bruce Onobrakpeya is the winner of Nigerian National Order of Merit Award in Humanity 2017.
In the course of his enchanting career as an artist, Onobrakpeya has held more than one hundred art exhibitions.
The first of which took place in Ughelli in 1959.
Since then his art works have been standing taller than any other at exhibitions in Lagos, New York, London, Berlin, Moscow, Warsaw, Washington, Bologna, Nairobi, Illinois, Toronto, Bradford, Holland, Zurich, Bonn, Zimbabwe, Abidjan, Dakar, Dubai, etc.
He was the second person after Chinua Achebe to win the Nigeria Creativity Award in 2010.
In recognition of his sublime art, he has received over fifty awards, honours and prizes from all over the world. He is a winner of the Pope Paul VI Gold Medal.
The Federal Government of Nigeria conferred the Member of the Order of the Federal Republic (MFR) on him in 2002.
Very significantly, the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) canonised him as a Living Human Treasure in 2006!
At the yearly award ceremony that comes up every first Thursday of every December, Osinbajo lauded the research and intellectual qualities of Professor Adesoji Adesina and Mr. Bruce Onobrakpeya, stressing that the Federal Government would continue to support research innovation in the country.
According to Professor Osinbajo, posterity would not forgive government functionaries if they fail to provide support for research activities, noting that every winner of NNMA was unique.
According to the vice chairman of the Visual Printmaker Association of Nigeria, Dr. Kunle Adeyemi:
“This award won by Prof. Onobrakpeya confirms that the visual art has made tremendous contributions to national development. To many of us in the association, Prof. Onobrakpeya is a mentor who brought us up in the art. Print has made art collection affordable to Nigerians, especially the aspiring collectors.”
The Vice President of Nigeria described the recipients as “milestones of Nigeria’s checkered history.”
The Nigerian National Order of Merit (NNOM) was instituted in 1979 to reward cerebral achievement. It was at inception known as the Nigerian National Merit Award (NNMA).
Chinua Achebe was the first winner in 1979 and many other distinguished Nigerian intellectuals had gone on to win it.
