TITLE HOLDERS

"Show me your friends and I'll tell you who you are". I am sure this is a saying we've either heard of or are familiar with. Well I have decided to change it up a bit for the purpose of this post. I have changed it to "show me a Nigerian and I will show you a titled man".  A very long time ago, (maybe at the beginning of time), everybody had one title. MR - if you are a man, MRS - if you are a married woman and MISS - for the single ladies. Later on, SIR came into the picture. I don't know when exactly but I think the English started it when they started dubbing men, knights in respect for "heroic" works done. With the advent of education and higher learning, came DR for doctors (medical and academic) and PROF for professors. With this, you realize that on most forms you fill out, you find such titles as "Mr." "Mrs." or "Miss". Occasionally, you may find "Dr." or "Prof" Or even "others".

Later on, more titles started coming up like "Chief" (usually for the rich). Also, the title "Barr" came on board and it seemed like people were starting to earn titles by studying books, for example doctors, barristers and professors cited above. It is my guess that suddenly, it dawned on Nigerians that the easiest ways to get a title was to go to school since majority of Nigerians aren't rich enough to get the "Chief" or "Sir" titles.

I had 3 experiences that became eyeopeners, and brought me to the realization that Nigerians do love their titles. I wondered why there was so much craze for owning a title and found out that having a title before your name, seemed to confer a certain degree of respect to the bearer. Who else loves the idea of "bigmanism" more than Nigerians? Nobody. It is normal to seek to get to the top, as those at the top seem to have everything at their beck and call, however, trying to get to the top at whatever means necessary is really unhealthy. Now to my experiences;

• I know a young barrister who was aspiring to be in the state house of assembly. One day, during the course of a discussion, I called him "honorable", immediately, he corrected me, He said my name is not honorable. Then I said okay, "barrister". Again, he said; "my name is not barrister, I am Tony Ajayi" (changed names for anonymousity sake). He went further to say that the most he could do was to add "esq" after writing out hisame. I was astounded but impressed. I think it was the first time I saw a person not want to identify with a title he had achieved. At least I know that in Nigeria, all our senators, honorable e.t.c. (whether in or out of office) retain their titles. They say "once a senator, always a senator" as if it's a chieftaincy title. 

• 2nd experience: I received a business card from an accountant friend of mine that I hadn't seen in a long while. I pocketed it and carried on with my work. Later in the day, I withdrew the card with the aim of saving the number in my phone (since I could easily misplace the card). What I saw made me burst out laughing. Just before his name was the abbreviation "acc". So his title and name is Accountant John Smith (name also anonymous), just like they have Prof. Udih or something. I paid more attention to business card from that day and I have seen many titles (recognized and unrecognized) e.g. "arc" for architect, "pharm" for pharmacist, "engr" for engineer and the list goes on and on and on. Infact, I'm beginning to think that very soon we would have people with the "blg" prefix to their names for blogger or will it be bloggist as my friends fondly call me. Lol.

• 3rd experience: Very humbling this one. Was watching the news when I heard the newscaster called Barrack Obama by "Mr". My jaw literally dropped. I mean Obasanjo is still referred to as former president Olusegun Obasanjo. However, the more I thought about it, the more it dawned on me that indeed he is a "Mr" president or not. It was then I decided to pick the brains of my ever arguing brothers and they confirmed that Nigerians do love titles and anyone at that. It doesn't matter how it is spelt, whether it makes sense or not, they just have to have it.

I believe we should stop looking for shortcuts to worthiness. Aim to be respected for who you are and not what you are or think you are.

Hope you had fun reading this,
Cheers