A young Nigerian lady recently found herself at the centre of a conversation about culture, respect and workplace etiquette when she addressed businessman and philanthropist Tony Elumelu by his first name. During an interactive session at the graduation ceremony of the United Bank for Africa’s Graduate Management Accelerated Programme, she began with, “Good morning, Tony.” Mr Tony Elumelu immediately corrected her and asked that she address him as “Mr Elumelu” or “TOE”. He added that he does not align with what he perceived as “Oyinbo life.”

There have been different reactions around the incident as some thought of Elumelu’s response as an some undue rigidity or sense of hierarchy in an era when many workplaces encourage employees to address even senior executives by their first names. Others commended him for protecting and promoting the African notion of respect.

Beyond the individual personalities involved, however, there is a more important question that the incident invites us to ask: At what point does cultural adaptation become cultural abandonment? This is a question Nigerians must ask more deliberately.

Culture is not merely the clothes we wear, the food we eat, the festivals we celebrate or the languages we speak. It is also embedded in the ways we relate to one another. It is reflected in our greetings, our expressions of respect, our treatment of elders, our family structures, our ceremonies and even the linguistic choices through which we recognise social relationships.

In much of traditional Nigerian society, age and social status have historically influenced how people address one another. A younger person calling an older person by the person’s first name, particularly in a formal setting, may be considered disrespectful. Titles such as Baba, Mama, Elder, Chief, Alhaji, Pastor, Reverend, Professor, Doctor, Sir and Madam do more than identify people. They encode relationships and social expectations. Such words are called honorifics and are even sometimes marked with differences in pronominal choices in languages such as Yoruba where o sharply contrasts with ẹ.

Of course, Nigerian culture is neither singular nor static. Nigeria is a heterogeneous society with hundreds of ethnic groups, languages, traditions and belief systems. What is considered appropriate in one cultural setting may not necessarily be the norm in another. We must therefore be careful not to turn one person’s preference into a universal Nigerian rule.

Yet this diversity should strengthen rather than weaken the argument for cultural preservation. Our differences are part of what makes Nigeria culturally rich. The objective should not be to fossilise culture or prevent cultural change. Rather, it should be to ensure that modernisation does not require us to become culturally anonymous.

The Elumelu incident is particularly instructive because the disagreement is not really about whether calling someone by their first name is grammatically correct. It is not. The question is what the act means within a particular cultural and social context.

Language does not merely communicate information; it communicates relationships. The difference between saying “Tony”, “Mr Elumelu”, “Chairman” or “TOE” is not simply a difference in vocabulary. Each form of address can signal a different understanding of familiarity, hierarchy, respect and social distance.

This is one area in which globalisation has introduced interesting tensions into Nigerian society. We increasingly encounter workplace cultures influenced by American and European practices, where the use of first names is sometimes presented as evidence of equality, accessibility and informality. There is certainly value in creating workplaces where people are approachable and where junior employees can communicate confidently with their superiors. But equality does not necessarily mean sameness.

A society can promote inclusion without erasing every distinction between age, experience and responsibility. A young employee can be confident without being disrespectful. A senior executive can be approachable without relinquishing a preferred form of address. And a modern Nigerian can embrace global ideas without assuming that everything Western is automatically superior.

Indeed, one of the greatest threats to cultural heritage is not the deliberate rejection of culture but the gradual normalisation of cultural practices whose origins and implications we no longer question. We sometimes hear Nigerians describe indigenous practices as “old school” while enthusiastically adopting foreign expressions, fashions, lifestyles and social conventions. A young person may know the latest American slang but struggle to explain the meaning of a Nigerian proverb. We may be able to reproduce accents from foreign films while becoming increasingly uncomfortable speaking our indigenous languages. We celebrate international festivals enthusiastically while regarding some of our own cultural practices as embarrassing remnants of the past. That is where the real danger lies.

Cultural preservation does not mean rejecting everything foreign. Nigerian culture itself has always evolved through interaction. Our history is filled with exchanges, adaptations and borrowings. English is now an important Nigerian language. Christianity and Islam have become deeply embedded in Nigerian society. Modern technology has transformed how we communicate. None of these realities makes us less Nigerian.

The challenge is to distinguish adaptation from displacement. We should be able to use English without allowing indigenous languages to disappear. We should be able to adopt contemporary management practices without abandoning culturally meaningful forms of respect. We should be able to participate in a global economy without allowing globalisation to become cultural homogenisation.

Perhaps this is why Elumelu’s brief correction deserves to be viewed beyond the immediate controversy. Whether or not one agrees with his preferred mode of address, his response raises an important cultural question: Who decides what aspects of our culture are worth retaining? The answer cannot always be the West.

There is also a lesson here for parents, schools, universities, traditional institutions and the media. Cultural preservation cannot be left to occasional speeches about “our heritage.” It must become part of everyday life. Children should be taught indigenous languages and the values embedded in them. Young Nigerians should understand the significance of greetings, kinship terms, proverbs, names, ceremonies and traditional knowledge. Schools should not treat culture merely as an item for display during cultural days. I am popularly called Dr GAB but there are times I frown on its use by my students. You would not say “Good day, Dr GAB” during a class presentation and have me ignore that. Communication, culture and context must meaningfully interact even academic and professional settings.

The media also has a responsibility. Nollywood, music, literature, radio, television and digital platforms have enormous power to determine what young Nigerians consider desirable or embarrassing. If our indigenous identities are consistently presented as backward while foreign lifestyles are portrayed as sophisticated, we should not be surprised when young people begin to regard their own heritage as an obstacle to modernity.

There is, however, another important lesson from the Elumelu episode: cultural preservation must not become cultural oppression. We should preserve values, not merely rituals. We should retain respect without defending humiliation. We should respect elders without creating an excuse for abuse of power. We should recognise hierarchy without denying the dignity of younger people. We should celebrate tradition while remaining willing to reform practices that violate contemporary principles of justice, equality and human dignity.

Culture survives when it is allowed to breathe. Therefore, the most sensible response to “You won’t call me Tony” is not to decide whether Elumelu was absolutely right or the young lady was absolutely wrong. The larger lesson is that Nigerians need a more conscious relationship with their culture. We need to know which foreign practices we are adopting, why we are adopting them and what we may be losing in the process.

A people who cannot preserve the meanings attached to their language, names, greetings, relationships and traditions may eventually preserve only the geographical territory called Nigeria while losing much of what makes Nigerians culturally distinctive. We must therefore embrace the world without losing ourselves in it.

Being modern should not require us to become Western. Being global should not require us to become culturally rootless. And speaking the language of the world should never mean forgetting the language through which our ancestors spoke to us. Perhaps the deeper message in Elumelu’s seemingly simple correction is that may borrow from other cultures, but we must not become strangers to our own.

(c) 2026 Ganiu Bamgbose writes from Lagos.