An elder statesman and legal icon, Chief Afe Babalola, has bagged the 2024 Best Nigerian Patriot Award for his outstanding performance in humanitarian activities, provision of quality education and peace promotion.

The award was given at an induction ceremony and technical workshop for the inauguration and certification of UN Ambassadors for Peace on Thursday in Abuja.

The event with the theme, “Effective Approach to Anger Management and Tolerance as Panacea for Global Peace and Sustainable Development,” was organised by the Association of UN Ambassadors for Peace (ASUNAP).

The award was organised in collaboration with The Mighty One Empowerment Foundation (TEMOEFA) to support the United Nations efforts in promoting global peace and ethnic tolerance.

About 10 persons were also inducted and certified as UN Ambassadors for Peace.

A former Minister of Education, Prof. Tunde Adeniran, who received the award on behalf of Babalola, said the association had done considerable research to come up with the nomination.

“It is one thing for individuals to be playing some roles, but it’s another thing for these roles to be recognised and to be appreciated by society. As a scholar and a researcher, I know that when you do a thorough research into what individuals have contributed in this particular area, one would see that it would be difficult to find someone who has contributed more than Are Afe Babalola. This is quite evident from his forays into different areas of national life and continental life of Africa,” he said.

Mr Adeniran called on Nigerians to key into the humanitarian gestures carried out by Mr Babalola.

According to him, if more Nigerians embrace peace and conflict resolution, a lot would be achieved for the country and for humanity.

“This is because there is nothing as precious as peace; without peace, you will not have a stable polity. Without peace, there will be no development and love among the people. You will not be able to advance to the level where you can say you have reached the optimum. The ultimate goal of society is to actualise the potential of citizens, and to be able to get the very best for people. I will certainly encourage and plead with Nigerians to key into this, to do their very best, starting from the local, family, community and societal level,” he said.

Also speaking, the Global Director of Interfaith for ASUNAP, Emmanuel Emeka, said the event was aimed at recognising Nigerians to promote peace in society.

Mr Emeka said the association holistically and comprehensively took the data of Mr Babalola’s performance, his impact in Nigeria and beyond and found him worthy of the award.

He said that voting was conducted across the nooks and crannies of the country, adding that his name came up with the highest number of votes among nominations.

He said the newly inducted ambassadors would be involved in conflict resolution and peacemaking.

” You can hear the reports of wars everywhere, indecent dressing everywhere and conflict everywhere. We need people whose integrity had been proven and we should bring them on board globally for peace,” he said.

In a keynote address, the Guest Speaker, Prof. Casmiar Obialom, charged the ambassadors not to give war a chance.

He noted that the cumulative effect of not implementing a marshal plan action to abate cases of impunity had been the root cause of conflicts in society.

Among Nigerians inducted into the association were retired Brig.-Gen. Nuhu Milah, retired Commandant Anthony Nwegbo, Prof. Abiodun Ajibade, Maxwell Abubu, Comfort Arinze and Dr Raphael Gajere.

(NAN)