The national conversation that flared after Tony Elumelu stopped a woman mid-sentence for calling him “Tony” pulled me straight back to Suleja, to a small room and two women who schooled me in ways no textbook ever did. I was not only educated but raised in that in-between space between cultures, with Fati, a Kakanda lady who was unmarried then, and Amina, a Yoruba woman I fondly called Aunty Amina, already married.
That afternoon I picked a call without thinking. It was my wife. I answered, “Aisha.” The air changed. Fati came at me with the kind of heat that makes you forget your own voice. “Is that how you call your wife by her name directly? You don’t even use anything to cover it up and it is normal to you?” I stood there, speechless, caught between embarrassment and confusion. Then Amina added her own, softer but no less firm, “Haba oga, it is not good. No one does that. It isn’t right.” Fati wasn’t finished. “I told you this Nupe people from Bida are somehow. I have never heard any man calling his wife by her name directly.” The point landed. It landed hard.
I walked away replaying it in my head. Was this really wrong? How had it never occurred to me? My wife had never complained. At home we had grown up calling my mum and even my dad by their first names, and I followed my senior brother around calling him by his too, until public spaces taught us both to flinch. I was wired for a kind of ease that felt natural to me, and yet I also felt a strange stiffness with people I wasn’t close to, struggling to say “sir” or “ma” even when they were younger.
What I realized later, and what sociology helps explain, is that names are never just names. Erving Goffman wrote about the “presentation of self,” how we perform different versions of who we are depending on the audience. In that room I had performed intimacy in public, and the audience read it as a breach. Anthropologist Ifi Amadiume’s work on gender and social norms in African societies reminds us that language around marriage is also language about order. Titles are scaffolding. They tell people where you stand, who you belong to, and how you should be treated.
The truth is I have always been uneasy with public displays that feel like theater. If I help my wife with washing, I would rather want the children be the only witnesses. If I call her “sweetie” or “dear,” it happens behind closed doors, not as a performance.
I once knew a woman who complained that her husband was mocked for refusing to take a second wife, accused of being controlled, of not being “man enough.” The gossip, she said, was the tax for choosing a different script. That stuck with me. There is research on what psychologists call “impression management” and what sociologists call “symbolic interactionism.” We read gestures for hidden motives. Too much public affection can trigger envy, suspicion, even blackmail. People ask, “Don’t you see how he is doing my wife is this, my wife is that?” as if devotion must be proved on stage. In my community, we also did not grow up branding spouses with grand public titles. That was private grammar, not public announcement. I could live with that. I could call her what I wanted when we were alone, and let the world see something quieter.
Still, I understand the other argument. Child development studies show that children model the language they hear. Calling each other “mum” and “dad” gives kids a map. Relationship scholars point out that respectful address can build a sense of belonging and signal care. I respect that. I just could not force myself into a public rule that felt like costume.
What brought it all back was Elumelu. Leadership newspaper and others ran it with the kind of headline that stops thumbs: “Tony Elumelu Rebukes Lady for Calling Him Tony.” In a viral video, a woman opened with “Good morning Tony…” He smiled, pretended not to hear, then stopped her. “Okay, no, you won’t call me Tony. I am not that kind of… You will call me Mr Elumelu or T.O.E. You won’t call me Tony, or call me chairman. I don’t subscribe to that kind of oyinbo life, okay?” She corrected herself and went on. He is 63, chairman of Heirs Holdings and UBA, chairman of Transcorp, founder of the Tony Elumelu Foundation. Online, some called her disrespectful, citing African deference to age and authority. Others saw it as a clash of cultures, the global workplace where first names flatten hierarchy.
That is the heart of it. Linguists call this “pragmatics,” the way context decides meaning. The same word can be reverent or rude depending on tone, setting, and relationship. In Western corporate culture, a CEO saying “call me Tony” is often an invitation to equality. In many African settings, age and status still carry weight, and a first name without permission can feel like stepping over a line. Elumelu wasn’t demanding every possible honorific. He drew a boundary: not Tony, not chairman, but Mr Elumelu or T.O.E. That is his right. The question that lingers is about proportion and intention. Was a public correction necessary, or would a quiet “please call me Mr Elumelu” have done it? And did she mean disrespect, or was she simply using the etiquette she knew?
This is where it gets interesting. Generational shift is real. Younger professionals in tech, media, and global firms often treat first-name use as professionalism, not insult. At the same time, titles in Nigeria do work. They preserve order, signal experience, and communicate recognition. The danger comes when respect hardens into intimidation, when we avoid a first name not out of courtesy but out of fear of wealth, age, or power. The deeper question the Elumelu moment forces is this: when does respect become deference, and when does informality become disrespect?
I have no perfect answer. I still find it hard to perform affection in public. I still believe some things belong to private rooms. But I have also learned that the way we address people is an invitation. It tells them what we expect back. Respect, as social psychologists note, tends to be reciprocal. Extend it and people often rise to meet it. Withhold it carelessly and you can break something before you know it. So I will keep calling my wife by name I like when it is just us, and I will keep choosing my words carefully when the room is full. Because language is power, and in Nigeria, as in most places, we are still negotiating, out loud, how much of the old world we carry into the new, and how much of the new world we are willing to let in.
Bagudu Mohammed is the Founder, Alternative Perspectives.
Web: https://alternativeperspective.onrender.com
Email: bagudumohammed15197@gmail.com | Phone: 0703 494 3575
