There is a peculiar epidemic ravaging Nigeria, a chronic addiction more persistent than malaria, and more contagious than WhatsApp broadcasts during election season. It is not cholera. It is not Lassa fever. It is a virus of titles, a madness of appellations, a national obsession with being addressed as something, anything, but ordinary “Mr” or “Mrs.”
In the Nigeria of today, everyone must be something. And I mean something important. The title of “Honorable,” once reserved for distinguished legislators in saner climes, has now been so democratized that it is cheaper than sachet water. All it takes these days is a mere political party membership card, preferably laminated in a shiny folder, and, voila, Honorable you are!
Consider this: Egbon Kunle, who last month was lamenting on Facebook about the price of garri, obtains an APC membership slip (photocopied, even) and by morning, his Twitter bio reads, “Hon. Kunle Omotosho.” No election. No appointment. No constituency. Only the miraculous laying of hands via political affiliation.
And if fortune smiles further and Bro Kunle manages to grab the position of Deputy Publicity Secretary of Ward 9, he will immediately upgrade his signature to “Hon. (Dr.) Kunle Omotosho, DSS, JP.” The “JP” here is, of course, the omnipresent “Justice of the Peace,” obtained after attending a one-hour induction conducted by a retired police sergeant in a canteen behind the local government secretariat.
It gets worse.
The infection has spread to honorary doctorates. Once upon a time, when universities, real universities, awarded honorary degrees, recipients took care to distinguish them. You were, say, Mr. Taiwo Adekunle, Hon. D.Sc., a humble acknowledgment that academia had merely honored you; you did not earn it in a grueling PhD defense. But today? No sir. Once the scroll touches the palm, the bearer immediately becomes Dr. Taiwo Adekunle. Don’t ask about the thesis. Don’t ask about the viva voce. His only defense was a donation of ten bags of cement and a promise to build a lecture theatre “next year.”
And then there are the professionals. Oh, the professionals!
Surveyors now parade themselves as Surv. James Kolawole. Architects are Arch. Yemi Shonde. Pharmacists insist on PHARM. Abdulkarim Musa. Accountants too are not left out: ACC. Johnson Onyekachi. What next? Would tailors start appending TLR. before their names? Will barbers soon sign off emails as BRB. Ayo Bamidele?
Even the sacred grounds of traditional culture have not been spared. In the days of our forebears, the Olori-Ebi of a family, the family head, was content to quietly settle disputes under the shade of “Igi Odan”. Today’s Olori-Ebi will print complimentary cards as “Chief Alhaji Barrister Olori-Ebi Emmanuel Ibe, Esq., PhD, JP.” Igi Odan has been cut down to make room for his personalized billboard.
We have now entered an era where some individuals, not content with one or two titles, wear theirs like masquerades layering costumes: Chief Dr. Hon. Engr. (Surv.) Yusuf Okonkwo, PhD, FNSE, FNAE, FNAPE, MBA, Esq., JP. Their business cards are heavier than their briefcases.
It is almost as if without these titles, their souls would disintegrate into insignificance. It is not enough to be anymore; you must appear to be.
And so, we live in a country populated by Honorable Chiefs, Doctor Engineers, Surveyor Architects and many more. Substance takes a back seat. Style, the loud, clanging, empty style, sits at the steering wheel, drunk on self-importance and inebriated by societal applause for empty grandeur.
As the Yoruba will say, “ko si nkan nibe,” “there is nothing inside.”
Perhaps, just perhaps, what Nigeria needs is less Honorable This and Chief That, and more honest citizens. Fewer titles, and more substance. Fewer ceremonies, and more service.
Until then, I suppose I must update my own title.
You may now address me, with the appropriate gravitas, as Hon. Comr. Adeyemi Babarinde Sunday, B.Sc Pol. Sci, M.Sc (in view).
After all, when in Rome…
– Babarinde Sunday Adeyemi writes from Kogi state.
