‘Good morning Tony’ – Elumelu Schools Graduate Trainee For Addressing Him By First Name

By Boluwatife Kehinde-Idowu

Mixed reactions have continued to trail a viral exchange involving United Bank of Africa (UBA) Group Chairman, Tony Elumelu, after he corrected a female graduate who addressed him by his first name during the bank’s Graduate Management Accelerated Programme graduation ceremony.

However, attention shifted to an interaction between Elumelu and one of the female graduates during the event, after she addressed him simply as “Tony”.

The graduate greeted him by saying, “Good morning, Tony.”

Elumelu initially appeared to take the greeting lightly, responding, “Toyin? Toyin?”.

When she clarified that she had said “Good morning, Tony,” Elumelu told her that he preferred to be addressed as “Mr Elumelu” or “TOE”, or “Chairman”.

“Okay. No, you won’t call me Tony. I’m not… you’ll call me Mr Elumelu or TOE. You won’t call me Tony, or Chairman. I don’t subscribe to that kind of… Oyinbo life, okay?” he said.

READ ALSO: UBA Announces Tony Elumelu’s Retirement As Group Chairman, Appoints Emmanuel Nnorom As Successor

The lady then corrected herself, saying, “Good morning, Mr Elumelu,” before continuing with her question.

The brief exchange was captured on video and later circulated widely across social media, generating conversations about workplace etiquette, respect for seniority and whether first-name culture should apply in formal corporate settings.

While some reactions appeared to agree with Elumelu’s position, arguing that the graduate should have maintained a formal approach when addressing a senior executive at a formal ceremony, others were more sympathetic towards the young woman.

An Instagram user, @official_oak1 while reacting to it, wrote: “Morning Tony, I think there is learning to take from yesterday on both sides. But if I’m being sincere, my biggest concern now is for the young lady involved.

“You and I both know that women, particularly young women, can sometimes get a raw deal in the corporate world. My worry is that this moment could now follow her internally perhaps a manager somewhere sees an opportunity to score “brownie points” by treating her differently, frustrating her progression or holding this incident against her because they think that is what senior leadership would want.

“I don’t believe for one moment that this would be your intention. From watching the interaction, I didn’t see bad blood between either of you. You made your point about respect and culture, and that should have been the end of it. Unfortunately, social media has now made it much bigger.

“My question now is simply: have we reached out to her and made sure she’s okay?

“Perhaps even a private conversation between the two of you would be valuable an opportunity to learn from each other, draw a line under it and move forward.

“Most importantly, I hope she knows that this moment will not define her or affect her future at UBA. She’s a young woman at the beginning of her career. We can correct, learn and move on without allowing one moment to become a label. I genuinely hope she’s okay.”

While playfully condemning the lady’s action, another Instagram user, @ajoke_surprises, wrote, “Where is that tony girl 😂😂 very silly”.

An X user @_sheisjennifer, while further condemning the act, said the act was disrespectful. She wrote: “Guyyy this is so disrespectful fr. Tony as how???”

Another X user, @damian_codes, while responding to those who saw the lady’s act as ‘audacity’, said “This one is not audacity. This is just a lady that isn’t properly raised at home. cos wth. Even if you two know each other before, common sense should make you understand that at that moment, you are not talking to your friend, but what he is, a chairman or boss, or at least an adult that is obviously older than you. ‘Good morning, Tony’ — sounds so anyhow.”

However, Popular Nigerian activist, Omoyele Sowore, seemed to support the lady’s stance. Sowore wrote on X: “When I said Tony Elumelu is a content creator with little or no intellect, his supporters were enraged.

“Now, what exactly is the difference between being called ‘Tony’ and ‘TOE’? Much ado about nothing!

“This is what Nigerians used to call ‘money miss road’.”