In our series of viewpoints from African journalists, Ghanaian writer and former government minister Elizabeth Ohene considers titles, honours and tradition.
I’ve recently been having some local difficulties with how to address people.
The rule of thumb is that you may not call someone who is older than or senior to you in any way by their name without an appropriate title.
It would be a mark of disrespect.
“*When the military moved into politics, we had more colonels, brigadiers, generals and even field marshals than the size of our armies could legitimately accommodate *”
Because I’m the eldest child of my parents my siblings may not call me Elizabeth without the title “da”, which is the abbreviated title for an elder sister.
The rule now seems to be, if you can get away with it, get a title - any title and use it.
From academia to politics to traditional settings and to religion, the proliferation of titles is breathtaking.
I used to think and say that it was a Nigerian disease, since almost every other Nigerian seemed to have a title of one kind or the other - also, I am a Ghanaian and we prefer to blame everything on our cousins, the Nigerians.
However if it was a Nigerian disease, it would be fair to say that the entire continent has caught the bug.
It used to be quite enough to be called a reverend minister; but no longer.
Now you must be a bishop, a prophet, an archbishop, a messiah and doubtless, there would be a few popes quite soon who do not live in the Vatican.
In the traditional set-up, it used to be there was a royal family and the chief was chosen and enstooled from that family.
Then a practice of granting of honorary chieftaincy titles started and not surprisingly the next step was the buying of chieftaincy titles.
The next we knew, everybody was a chief, a prince, a princess, a king, a queen, an emperor.
And when the military moved into politics, we had more colonels, brigadiers, generals and even field marshals than the size of our armies could legitimately accommodate - and God help you if you mistakenly call a brigadier, a colonel.
Academia used to be the one sanctified area where a title, once earned, was universal.
Then we got the granting of honorary degrees and the next we knew everybody became a degree holder, a doctor, and if you can get away with it - a professor.
I discovered there are even titles called “PhD in progress”, “awaiting MSc” and “MA attempted”. I also found a group of officials in the public service in Ghana who had qualifications titled “awaiting results”.
“On this continent, to be on the safe side, it is probably easier to address everybody you meet as “honourable””
Now it’s not enough to carry one of these titles, no matter how elevated. So you now find “His Royal Highness, Nana Professor, the Archbishop”.
It is in the realm of politics that things get really complicated on the continent.
Who qualifies to be accorded the title “honourable”
On this continent, to be on the safe side, it is probably easier to address everybody you meet as “honourable”.
I recall going to Uganda in the late 1990s on a reporting assignment and getting totally confused by the plethora of “honourables”.
I mocked them and I did a less than respectful report on the subject of “honourables”.
Many “Mr Presidents”
Then I came back home to Ghana and walked into a nation of “honourables” and discovered you omit the title at your peril.
Members of the district assemblies are “honourables” and don’t you dare forget it.
The district, municipal and metropolitan chief executives are “honourables”, of course the members of parliament, current and past are “honourables” and when I became a minister of state in the government, I found out I was an “honourable”.
It wasn’t just a title, it became my name, as in: “Good morning, honourable”; “How are you, honourable”; “Where are you going, honourable”; “Give me some money, honourable”.
You could protest all you wanted, nobody took any notice.
And it is not only a question of insisting on being accorded the title, you sometimes have to protect your title from being extended to undeserving people.
This year the president of our republic gave vent to a full-scale tirade to remind all citizens he was the only president in town and warned off all would-be pretenders to his throne.
Of course he was sadly mistaken.
In my time as a minister of state of education, I would in any one day deal with the president of the National Union of Ghana Students, president of the University Teachers Association, president of the Graduate Teachers Association, president of the Students Representative Council, president of the Disgruntled Graduate Students Association and they all took their titles with them and had to be addressed as “Mr President”.
Now I am no longer a minister of state, I thought I had regained my name, but it turns out I am sadly mistaken and I’m stuck with “honourable” - or to give you may full title: “Da (being the first born in the family), Mamaga (having been enstooled an honorary queen mother of Abutia, Dr Dr (awaiting honorary degrees), Mrs, Her Excellency, the Honourable Elizabeth Ohene”.
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