By Abdu Rafiu
Mr Tony Elumelu, until a week ago, chairman of UBA, taking exception to being addressed by his first name by a young trainee at the bank, has predictably triggered unceasing debate across the land. The occasion was the graduation of this year’s set of the bank’s Graduate Management Accelerated Programme, which as it was later revealed, has produced no fewer than 5,000 professionals. It took the gathering by surprise when the lady addressed her chairman, Mr Elumelu, 63, simply as Tony and at a public event for that matter.
A great many considered it rude, given Mr Elumelu’s standing in our society both in terms of position as chairman of the bank, material endowment and his age. For anyone who might see it as a clash of culture and modernity, Elumelu himself was quick in rejecting it, saying he does not subscribe to what he called “Oyinbo” lifestyle, that is the Western culture.
In his words: “You won’t call me Tony. You’ll call Mr Elumelu, TOE or chairman. I don’t subscribe to that kind of Oyinbo lifestyle.” It was obvious that it was at this point that many who gathered knew relief!
In the United Kingdom and U.S., one finds a child as young as 10 or 12 addressing his mother Jane or father Jack without qualms and without batting an eyelid. The practice has for some time been making an inroad into the Nigerian culture imported by the Gen-Z generation in particular and those who imbibed it while they sojourned in Europe and America. It is work place culture as well as in some of our banks, the new generation ones in particular. In fact, a former staffer of UBA said the lady did nothing wrong because the bank’s practice required that everyone regardless of rank or age is addressed by his or her first name. They were trained to do so. In the end Mr Elumelu drew the lady close to himself, thus restoring her confidence.
A great deal of deference for age is displayed in African culture. It is such that the African nationalist Nelson Mandela whom some are wont to describe as a citizen of the universe because of his legendary struggle to restore the dignity of the Blackman, said there are no uncles, there are no aunties, cousins, and there are no nieces nor are there nephews in Africa.
According to Mandela, uncles are fathers in Africa, aunties are mothers, cousins are brothers or sisters as the case may be and nephews, sons. Children of your uncles are your sons and daughters and where there are material needs in the event of the uncle passing away you meet them. Where there are means carrying the responsibility is automatic and the beneficiaries themselves see as their entitlement what in some other cultures are regarded as gesture.
An esteemed colleague and editor, Dr Lasisi Olagunju, wrote this week in his accustomed scholarly, kaleidoscopic and compelling column in the Nigerian Tribune about the culture of deference to age in the South-West. Whoever is older than one is accorded his space by way of respect and precedence regardless of his social standing and paucity or absence of public acknowledgement. It is, therefore, not surprising that he wrote: “The critic in me would look at the whole thing, bring down the gavel and deliver a verdict: Corporate accident. Who collapses the staircase of age in Africa. In Africa sacred is the gradation, the hierarchy, the culturally recognised ascent that comes with age.
To collapse that staircase is to flatten distinctions divinely ordered…The Yoruba have a carefully structured culture, with clearly defined codes of behaviour and relationships…the politics and sociology of naming in greeting is a course taught from the womb. Everyone knows their place in the social order, and every relationship comes with its terms, privileges and obligations… The way I respect my blood relations is the way I must respect their contemporaries outside our lineage.” It is a full-blown exposition of deference associated with the Yoruba culture including the address connected with hierarchy among a man’s wives.
What I may seek to add is how the wife of an elder brother addresses the younger sibling of the husband who may not be more than 10 years of age and it is for as long as the woman is in the marriage. It is ‘oko mi’, that is my husband even where the gap in age between them is 10 or 11 years; and the hubby’s sister, ‘Ori Aran’.
The corporate work culture in some of the banks whereby everyone is brought to the same level and addressed by their first names is unhealthy as it fosters too close a relationship. This leads to ethereal bonding which can last for hundreds of years in the Beyond, and these may be people at varying levels of spiritual maturity. What brings them together in the office is skill and intellectual compatibility which may have practically no shred of inner homogeneity. Where there is bonding, the more rarified and who bears a greater degree of inner radiance flowing from a higher degree of spiritual maturity is retarded in his ascent. He cannot make progress because the one that is less developed cannot be lifted up even though he may be intellectually sagacious. Intellectual sagacity is not the same thing as wisdom, refinement, maturity, freshness of ideas and depth that issue from spiritual maturity as one being guided by intuition which in turn draws from the Radiations of the Light to which the intellect is closed.
This kind of posture of deviating from hierarchy and deference must be troubling to us because of where it may, out of habit, slowly and unsuspectingly lead us. Already, the situation, if we care to notice, it is awful, very disgusting everywhere, in all nations, in all cities and towns, in every village. Have we not observed that hardly does a large chunk of we mankind shrink from calling even the most sacred Word, the Most Holy, the Name of the All-Highest by what It is, God, and reducing It to every day, indeed every moment conversation! The Bringer of the Grail Message, “In the Light of Truth”, Abd-ru-shin, draws the attention of mankind to this: “You very often speak of God, too often for that awe still to resound in It which would indicate the right intuitive perception when you utter this Word: the awe which will allow you only to whisper the Sublime Word in reverential devotion, so as to shield It carefully from any kind of desecration.
“But what have you made of the most sacred of all concepts in the Word! Instead of humbly and joyfully preparing your spirit for this most Sublime Expression so that it may gratefully open itself to an unspeakable Radiation Power of the Unsubstantiate Light-Sublimity of real Being, Who first permits you as well as all creatures to breathe, you have dared to drag It down to the low planes of your most trivial thinking, using It carelessly as an every-day word, and thus can find no entrance to your spirit.
“It is then obvious that the effect of this most Sublime of all words will be different from the effect on those who whisper It with the proper awe and recognition.
“Therefore, pay attention to all words; for they hold joy or sorrow for you, they build up or disintegrate, they bring clarity but can also confuse, according to the manner in which they are spoken and applied.”
As it concerns addressing one another by first names at work, the picture of one family emerges swinging in collaborative and harmonious togetherness. This draws the best from every member who is seen as not just a member of staff but of a big house. It sounds so sweet but it flows only from our limitedness and ignorance of consequences. We are sternly warned to avoid it.
Indeed, The Message states unequivocally as follows: “It should be a condition for everyone striving seriously upon earth that the addressing of a person as ‘Thou’ (‘Du’ in German) must be kept strictly sacred among each other. Only in exceptional cases may it be used. This is different in the Ethereal World, the so-called ‘beyond.’ There the barriers of spiritual maturity are strictly established and cannot be transgressed…Thus it must become a command for everyone striving for the Light that he follows the habit of offering the familiar ‘Du’ to his fellow-men sparingly. Best of all he should avoid it entirely.
“If it should be offered to you reject it, except in those cases where a serious union for earth-life is intended, i.e., in marriage! Years later you will recognise the value resting in this command…
“With this German ‘Du’, which embodies a very special conception, every soul enters into a bond capable of reaching beyond the earthly grave.
“Special threads which are by no means harmless immediately link one to the other with the use of this ‘Du’—threads which may hold the spirits down, even those capable of ascent! For seldom will it happen that two spirits of the same maturity in all things are hereby linked together, two which actually stand on the same step spiritually.”
In accordance with the Law, where two are link up who are unequal, the higher one is pulled down. It is more difficult for the lower in a union or bonding even if done out of the best of intensions or ignorance to be pulled up from the place he stands. “For in Creation the higher one alone can descend to lower planes, but the lower one never ascends.” Until the man that is below the mark makes personal effort to awaken and develop inner maturity the one that is higher spiritually and has crossed the threshold cannot make progress and advance in the Beyond towards Paradise, our longed-for Home. We can see the dreadful danger that no spirit can ever succeed in raising itself even one step above the place it stands. “Therefore, establish a barrier for the future, the necessity and great value of which you probably cannot quite understand”, so admonishes Abd-ru-shin.
The deference in the custom of the Yoruba is note-worthy. It may have been born of ancient knowledge as there are no people who had not been permitted knowledge of the Truth before brought by Teachers of Mankind and Prophets in past eras.Great care is taken such that an elder brother of a former governor will not call him by his first name in the presence of their children, for example. The elder one would call him, “Aburo” and he, too, would call the elder brother “Egbon mi”. The wife is either called “Dear” or is addressed using the name of any of her children, “Mama Joke”, “Mama Gbenga”, as examples.
However, the deference may free them from slow but ruinous bonding, as it makes individual of each person, the family intimacy which exists and which rings out loud does not allow for enough distancing to be able to free them. The culture of intimate home, too, has grave consequences. Imagine a woman who has since her marriage into the family been addressing an 11-year-old boy as ‘oko mi’ for 71 years as demanded by the custom! The woman was 21 and the boy 11 years when she married into the family. The custom requires that she finds names with which to address all members of her new family affectionately.
How do such free themselves from their ensuing spiritual ties considering the fact that words are powerful, laden with energy? There is a releasing quality in every word. They take on form because it is the content and meaning of the words that are decisive in Creation and not necessarily the intention of the speaker. It is the address in which she does not vibrate in her soul that will dissolve in thin air mediating nothing beneficial or harmful. Abd-ru-shin says: “Therefore, pay attention to all words, for they hold joy or sorrow for you, they build up or disintegrate, they bring clarity but can also confuse, according to the manner in which they are spoken and applied.”
He adds: It is true that the human word is only able to send out its effect into the Planes of Fine Gross Matter, but that is enough retroactively to shape the destinies of men and also of peoples here on earth!”
The spread of good education among the women may be having noticeable effects on the relationship between the brothers and their wives, that is wives of siblings. The educated wives moving away from tradition call their brothers-in-law by their first names which again will lead to fostering ties. This does not even go down well with the siblings.
In other words, the Yoruba must find some other way of families displaying reverence to in-laws and respect within the rank and file so that they do not weave unwholesome threads for themselves that will bind one to the other. I am not by this calling for a slavish conduct or for hero-worshipping.
Everyone must be encouraged and allowed to stand alone, raise his head high, proudly and in calm confidence. We are told that each person must journey alone through the mills, through the mechanism of Divine Laws in Creation. “And therefore, it is necessary for every man himself to become acquainted at the right time with the nature and function of the mills.”
If the boy and the woman who addresses him affectionately are unequal in their spiritual maturity, it may lead to a karmaic marriage in another earth life with the words, “Oko Mi” pressing for materialisation. If there is a wide gap between them in their maturity and compatibility, the marriage will not work; and they will not be able to explain it as coming from the foundation laid far back in a previous earth life in the years of ignorance. And painfully and inexplicably, they will not be able to separate— each person going his or her own way!!
We have Mr Tony Elumelu and the young lady to thank for an awakening they triggered and for adverting our minds to an issue of utmost importance that demands deep contemplation on, an issue that can easily lead to threads that bind souls, one to another in the corporate world, in families and in social lives of a people. The disentanglements may take centuries both on earth and in the Beyond to yank off the souls! It behoves us all, therefore, to seek right knowledge!
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