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THE LESSON OF MR IWU FOR ALL NIGERIANS
I have said it before and will say it again: culture influences people’s behaviors. Nigeria’s culture is narcissistic and rewards children running around and pretending to be adults. It rewards people who claim to be important. It rewards folks who claim to have fancy titles. To have fancy academic and or other titles is perceived as making one important.
In the West, it is not ones academic titles but what one does with them that matters. It is not ones political position but what, in fact, one does in such position.
Have you dedicated yourself to the study of particular subject, understood it and written about it? That is what matters, not your academic titles and or social position.
I believe that Nigerians worshipping of academic degrees and social positions is what makes Nigerians tell lies about their backgrounds.
 Mr. Iwu (please note that I said Mr. Iwu, not Professor or Dr Iwu, for he is not our teacher; at present, he is a public servant and, as such, our servant, not our teacher; it is only in a University Campus that he is a professor for the students he teaches, if he is one) is probably a smart chap who, during the Biafra war, learned something about pharmacy.
In my area, some teenage boys worked in military hospitals (one was in our area) and learned a lot about medical practices. Indeed, some of them were treating soldiers who were dreadfully wounded. Perhaps, Mr. Iwu probably worked dispensing medications to soldiers and learned a lot about Pharmacy. Perhaps, at the end of the war, he felt like he knew enough pharmacy to work in that field.
He probably knew enough pharmacy for during war times people are given crash courses in everything. It was possible for him to have learned enough undergraduate pharmacy during the few years he was in Biafra working at dispensaries. (The Biafrans had an oil refine nary in my village; this refinery was built by secondary school boys who put their basic understanding of Chemistry to work and constructed a fractionating tower out of mud. The point is that school boys became engineers. So, Mr. Iwu probably learned a lot about medications during the war.)
As reported, at the end of the war he worked as a dispenser at Enugu and then went overseas and instead of doing undergraduate studies in Pharmacy went straight to graduate school. Apparently, he did well in graduate school otherwise he would not have earned the master and doctorate degrees in pharmacy.
In a way, Mr. Iwu is to be admired for earning those degrees.
However, being a Nigerian he was motivated to parade around with his degrees and calling himself professor. Apparently, he felt that being called Doctor and professor made him important.
We, Nigerians, are yet to learn that being a PhD or Professor is not what matters but what one does with them.
The term professor is simply French for teacher. Professor Iwu means teacher Iwu. (In this light, is Mr. Iwu a teacher at INEC? If not, why is he called Professor Iwu? Of course, it is because of the assumed prestige the title gives him.)
In broader term, professor means some one who professes something he has learned and believes to be true; some one who dedicates his life to searching for an aspect of knowledge and disseminating it. In this light, how many Nigerian so-called professors are devoted to the search of knowledge in their field of studies and writing about it?
The real question is how to get Nigerians to desist from their title craziness. How can we persuade these people that they are important, as they are; that they do not need to flaunt their so-called degrees and titles in your face to seem important?
I have a friend from my town. He has an American JD (Juries Doctor). Generally, American lawyers are not called Dr so and so, thus, I call him by his first name, Emeka. Once I chided him because I had to leave a message in his answering machine and he had said in the answering machine: “you have reached Dr so and so; I am not available to take your message; please leave a message and I will get back to you” I told him that as an attorney to call himself a doctor was inappropriate. Well, since then he has not talked to me, again. Apparently, he felt that I was not respectful enough.
(Amazing, I have PhD from the University of California, one of America’s toughest universities, taught at two universities as a professor, but an empty headed chap felt I did not respect him because I did not call him doctor. He forgot that what I did to him I do to me. I do not ask any one to call me doctor or professor. As an aside, some of our Igbo brothers are so impressed by titles that if you do not parade them they would not respect you. Many of them, obviously, do not respect me primarily because I do not parade my titles about. These people do not judge you by your productivity, by what you do, but by what you seem to be in the public’s eyes. This is very sad.)
I was surprised by my age mate’s reaction to me and being who I am, very analytic, tried to understand his behavior, to understand the root of his desire to be called Dr so and so. I have written about these issues.
In sum, Nigerians title craziness emanates from colonized persons sense of inferiority; they internalized their colonial masters’ perception of them as nothing and their desire to be like their colonial masters, who supposedly are important. To the extent that they acquire their colonial masters education to that extent that they feel important. To have PhD, apparently, makes inferior feeling Africans feel that they are now up to par with whites. These people feel totally inadequate and inferior and need the white man’s degrees and titles to make them seem like they are important, and if you do not recognize those titles it is as if you did not recognize their existential importance.
To me, a person is important regardless of the degrees and titles he has or claims to have.
The Iwu Saga is a lesson for all Nigerians. It is time that we changed our narcissistic culture and stopped our infantile pursuit of attention and admiration via empty titles.
There ought to be a law saying that regardless of your academic background that in public office you must be called Mr. Mrs. Ms (Mallam, Mazi, Ogbeni etc). That law must also ban calling politicians Chief, Alhaji and other such nonsensical titles.
We must learn to simply accept people as they are without regard to their social positions and academic titles.
It is time those with academic titles dedicated themselves to the search for knowledge and stopped trying to impress us with their so-called education.
In the final analysis, the Nigerian culture produced Mr. Iwu and his lying behavior. I say that we made him the fool he has made of himself. Let us, therefore, forgive him but insist that from now on, all public officials with academic background be simply called Mr. or Mrs. Etc.
This is what I have to say on this matter. What do you say?
Ozodi Osuji
January 26, 2007
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Posted by Robot| 26.01.2007 15:11