PR SHOT: Parental Perception, Oyinbo and Gen Z Culture: How “Tony” Became the “Mr Elumelu” Saga
By Haroon Aremu
It was only one sentence, “Good morning Tony.”
But that word opened a much bigger wound. A young United Bank for Africa (UBA) graduate trainee stood before Tony Elumelu, the bank’s Chairman and one of Nigeria’s most prominent business leaders, and addressed him by his first name. What followed was a brief correction but Nigerians did not let the moment pass.
Some defended the young woman, arguing that she was in the corporate world and that modern organisations, including UBA, no longer need rigid titles. Others saw something far more troubling: the gradual disappearance of the African understanding of respect.
And this time, the uncomfortable truth needs to be said plainly. In the Nigerian and African cultural setting, the girl was wrong.
Not because a chairman must be worshipped or young people should be afraid to speak, it is simply owing to the fact that respect has always been part of who we are.
*We Are Losing Something*
There was a time when a Nigerian child knew instinctively that you did not call your father by his first name. You do not call an elder by their name or casually address your teacher as an equal. At the university, you recognised the professor, the doctor and the lecturer by their appropriate titles.
These were not merely words. They communicated respect, age, experience, achievement and social position.
Some old parenting methods were unnecessarily harsh and deserved to change. But in correcting those excesses, we may have committed another mistake, we gradually weakened correction itself. Everything became “self-esteem”, “mental health” or “let the child express themselves.”
Yes, children deserve dignity. But teaching a child how to respect an elder is not emotional abuse. Correction is not humiliation. Discipline is not hatred. When society stops teaching these distinctions, the consequences eventually walk into the workplace.
*“But it is the Corporate World”*
This is perhaps the most popular defence of the trainee. But there is a fundamental flaw in that argument. Corporate culture does not automatically erase culture. Nigeria is not London.
We can learn from other corporate systems without abandoning the values that define our own society. The old saying remains relevant: when you are in Rome, behave like a Roman.
If a Western company operates a first-name culture and a boss says, “Call me John,” then John it is. But where no such invitation has been given, particularly in a formal Nigerian setting involving a chairman old enough, the culturally appropriate starting point is respect.
“Mr Elumelu, Sir or Chairman.” Any of these would have communicated the necessary courtesy. Calling him “Tony” was therefore not merely a question of corporate informality. It was a failure to read the Nigerian room.
*Even Broadcasting Teaches Us About Context*
Some have circulated clips of Elumelu appearing on international broadcasts where presenters address him as “Tony.” But that argument misses the point. Broadcasting has its own conventions.
A presenter in the United Kingdom or the United States may operate within a culture where first-name address is normal. That does not mean every Nigerian corporate gathering must reproduce the same convention.
Communication is contextual. A strategic communicator knows this. You do not communicate merely according to what is technically permissible. You communicate according to the audience, occasion, relationship, hierarchy and desired perception.
And that is where reputation enters the conversation.
*Reputation is Built in Small Moments*
In strategic communications and public relations, reputation is not created only through speeches, campaigns and press releases. It is created in moments like “How you enter a room, greet people, address senior colleagues, respond when corrected and your conduct when nobody is clapping.”
A young professional may one day sit before a client, investor, government official or chairman seeking a multimillion-naira deal. Should they be confident? Absolutely. But does confidence mean calling a senior person by their first name without invitation? Certainly not.
Professional maturity is knowing the difference between what you can do and what is strategically wise.
The trainee was corrected, and that correction matters. In African upbringing, when an elder corrects you, the expected response is humility: learn, adjust and move forward. The goal of correction is growth, not humiliation.
She should be allowed to learn from the experience, sharpen her professional judgement and become better for it.
*The Real Crisis Began Long Before UBA*
Blaming Gen Z alone is too easy. Blaming “oyinbo civilisation” alone is also too easy. The deeper crisis began when the Nigerian home and school gradually stopped teaching the fundamentals of respectful conduct.
Parents became reluctant to correct. Teachers lost authority. Students became increasingly comfortable with familiarity. And society began treating every form of correction as an attack on individuality.
We should not return to abusive parenting. But neither should we raise children who cannot distinguish confidence from disrespect.
Our children must learn that confidence does not require disrespect, disagreement does not require rudeness, and intelligence does not require arrogance.
We can embrace modern corporate practices without becoming culturally rootless. Civilisation should improve us, not erase us. A Nigerian should be able to compete in a global boardroom while still understanding why an elder is addressed differently from a friend. That is not backwardness; it is cultural intelligence.
The UBA moment, therefore, should not become another social-media witch-hunt. The young trainee made a mistake; she should learn from it, not be permanently condemned. But neither should the mistake be excused simply because she is young or because someone invoked “corporate culture.”
She was wrong in that context. Saying so is not hatred; it is correction.
The bigger lesson is simple: we can modernise our workplaces without modernising respect out of existence, and embrace the world without abandoning Africa.
Because if we stop teaching our children how to respect those who came before them, the question will no longer be whether they can survive in the corporate world, it will be what exactly are we preparing them to become?
*Haroon Aremu is a strategic communicator who wrote in via [email protected]*
