Moment of Truth Titles and Acronyms There is nothing wrong about people having their accomplishments attached to their names as appellations. The problem arises when people now see such acronyms as a status symbol of oppression, influence and affluence. Why is this a problem? Among other reasons, it shows crudity, mediocrity, barbarism, pride and above all idolatry. Those who really understand the Bible properly will know that our God created both good and evil but HE did not create sin. The root of all sins, believe you me, is Pride. Even idolatry’s foundation is pride. Idolatry is defined as: to worship idols; excessive devotion or reverence for persons or things; a false notion, reasoning, false opinion, idea, misleading argument. It is pride that makes somebody create a myth about himself so that others will give excessive reverence to him. Actually that was the origin of the fall of Lucifer, the most beautiful angel ever created. And since then he has been going to and from like a roaring lion seeking whom to devour. He used the most subtle animal, serpent for Eve and studied the peculiar vulgarism of Nigerians and been using greed, avarice and hatred. How many of us can totally trust his family members or closest friends? Because of Lucifer’s vast knowledge about creation, he sees Nigeria as a fertile ground for recruiting into hell and subtly introduces pride. With pride and our ignorance, it is easy for Satan to make our country a fertile recruitment base for hell. This he has successfully done, perhaps without our knowing. No wonder the Scriptures say my people perish for lack of knowledge. No wonder Pius B. Adesanmi rightly defined our country as: “Nigeria, the earthly address that Satan rents to provide temporary accommodation for the occupants of hell whenever he needs to service the furnaces in hell.” The unfortunate thing here is there is no sector that can be exempted in this craze for acquiring titles. When Pa. Shehu U. A. Shagari became our President in 1979 and took the title of Alhaji, many of us raised eyebrows then. I argued then that since he became the President he should drop that title because “Alhaji” is not a title but an appellate that the Saudi Arabians call visitors when they visit their country. It basically means “alien”. That is why the natives of Saudi do not address themselves as Alhajis. How many other countries of this world do you hear people bear “Alhaji” except Nigeria? Ahmadu Ahidjo who was bearing Alhaji never wrote it officially before his name when he was the President of his country. Within no time, many people then saw that being an Alhaji was a better key to open higher government doors. During this third republic, it has graduated to the extent that all politicians want to be addressed as something. I was flabbergasted to hear councillors of local governments being called “Honourables, Chairmen upwards now answer “Excellency”. What of the business circle? There are so many “otunbas, oloyes etc” that one begins to wonder how many “otuns” an oba will have. This made me to research and find that very many of the title givers are not even “obas” themselves. Many of them are village heads whose villages or domains you have never heard of. In our craze to be excessively respected, people go to these domain heads and give paltry sums to confer that title not minding that it is of no relevance and perhaps does not exist. The same way many pay some University heads to confer honourary doctorates on them. These conferees have never made any positive impact on the society before, neither are they known by any outstanding qualities. Gone were the days when sterling achievement and contribution were the criteria of awarding honourary titles. There are so many “sir and ladies” now that you wonder where are the impacts of these people on the society. Everybody knew the outstanding performance of Sir Louis Odumegwu Ojukwu before being awarded the title, or that of Dr. S.B Bakare or Dr. Adeola Odutola or Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Gamji or even I.K Dairo among others. Nowadays, people of questionable characters are called “Dames and Sirs” all over the land. Those in academics will bear witness to it that many current professors are not professing anything. I learnt that it goes with high connection with the head of the institutions nowadays. I remember my days in Ife in the eighties on the inaugural lecture of a professor, which Professor Soyinka openly declared that he would not attend because that particular person had not done enough to merit that professorial title. Prof WS would have died from tummy ache now if he were still teaching in the Nigerian Universities! Worse still is the craze for titles in Christendom in Nigeria. Nowadays, you see pastors trying to overshoot one another with titles. You hear Reverend Pastor General or Lt. General so and so nowadays. I once witnessed a contention between two pastors of the same church with different branches. The moment they split, the followers of the one that split to form his own parish began to call him “daddy” even though he was not older than half of the members. Once the other group saw that, they also started calling their own pastor “daddy”. Without much ado, the new parish promoted their pastor to “Baba” as they would not want their own pastor to equal to the other pastor. I wept. Yes, I wept because they did not know what they were doing, because they were idolaters and because they were novices in the things of God; because they were only using human wisdom; because I examined their pedigree and saw that they were merely doing a job to fetch food and water on the table. They were not serving God but their bellies. They preferred the praise of men to God. They are not different from our Juju, Fuji and hip-hop maestros giving themselves ridiculous appellations of Emperors, Barristers, General, Professor, Admiral, Ambassador, Commodore, King, Superior etc. If you doubt me, go and call your pastor “Mr. or Bro.” or his name without the acronym “Pastor”. You are lucky if you get away with preaching of being a proud and a critic. If the person smiles at you, its better you begin to beg, before he sends your name to his godfather to rein curses or juju on you. Many of them have secret godfathers who help their ministries with short cuts to progress. That is a fact and I have seen such in my few years in the ministry. How many Brother Gbile Akanni do you have in Nigeria? Nay, they think not acquiring a title makes him less of a man of God. They wanted to make Jesus the king but the Bible says all the times he dodged out of their presence and hid himself. But our pastors want to be kings, GOs, Dictators University visitors etc. this generation of vipers, woe unto you if you do not change. Who will tell the people the truth when you are doing the same thing; when you are of the world? To show Nigerian Pastors naivety, “Pastor” is not a title. If they understand the Bible they will know that Pastor is a GIFT of the Holy Ghost and NOT a TITLE. There are approved titles in the Bible that you can bear if you are truly one. Your love for titles among to idolatry; turn a new leaf and humble yourselves before the Holy Ghost and HE will teach you HIS word. Nigeria needs to be purged of its pride; its unsatisfying appetite for title acquisitions. Our Father Almighty God whose Name is Yahweh and Amen will make your crooked ways smooth and cover you with His Kabode Glory in Jesus Name. Have a blessed week.
Posted on: Sun, 22 Sep 2013 03:17:37 +0000
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