When Inordinate Ambition Subjects The Title, Your Excellency, To Flagrant Abuse

By Sir Don Ubani; KSC, JP
Okwubunka of Asa,
State Publicity Secretary, PDP, Abia State Chapter.
26th February, 2018.
The noun, Excellency, is a title or form of address given to certain high officials of State, especially Presidents, Governors, High Commissioners, Ambassadors or top-ranking Priests of the Roman Catholic Church.
This title predates the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. For people who are conversant with the Bible, this title was used in addressing Prime-Minister Joseph by his brothers who, out of envy though not knowing the will of God, had sold him into slavery in Egypt.
The title is recorded as having been used sixty-seven times in eleven translations of the Bible. In many of the translations, the title refers to God.
As the first President of the United States of America from 1789 to 1797, George Washington used the title as a mark of distinction and honour.
The title, Excellency, applies only to an incumbent President or any such official conventionally entitled to be so addressed.
The ethos governing the conferment and subsequent use of the title do not provide for its use by former occupants of such exalted positions.
This reason accounts for why George Washington who died on 14th December, 1799, two years after leaving office, dropped the title and never answered it again.
It is quite ridiculous and disheartening that in Nigeria, particularly in Abia State, whoever is merely able to purchase his or her Political Party’s governorship nomination form for election automatically goes by the title, Excellency.
This is a sad commentary on the type of education we claim to have acquired in this part of the world.
Education, being a process of receiving or giving systematic instructions, should be able to cultivate in us the discipline that goes with it. This means that we should not go by appellations that we do not merit.
A situation where a man who has never been a President, Governor, Ambassador or an occupant of a position which protocol confers on him the title, Excellency, would allow himself to be addressed in such a borrowed rope, does not only portray ignorance, it equally depicts absurdity.
In fact, who ever that does that, does not only succeed in making a caricature of himself. This is because even if conscience and public morality have been too badly debased and dethroned, official protocol in public gathering will always cause a clear distinction between the real and false Excellencies.
The Black man is known for recalcitrance. He is not given to adherence to law and order. In most cases, he is governed by irrationality.
Many of us profess to be Christians. Even some of us are known children of Pastors, Preachers or Evangelists.
Yet haughtiness would not allow us learn a lesson of pragmatic living from what our Lord Jesus Christ taught us on how to be humble.
In Luke 14:10, Christ taught us to be humble by not sitting on a high table when invited to a ceremony.
Rather, we should sit on a low table so that it would be a thing of honour when the host comes in and seeing one at that low table would say, please come over to the high table for that is where you should be.
He went further to say that the reverse would be the case for he who uninvitedly occupies a high table but is directed to leave it for a low one.
Regardless of this worrisome arrogance which the famous Jamaican Regae maestro; Jimmy Cliff, summarized as Foolish Pride, we should be hopeful that there must be light at the end of our tunnel of moral decay.
That a divinely constructed, popularly elected, and legally confirmed Governor of a State in Nigeria could, on the day of his swearing-in, make it loud and clear as his official position that now body should address him as, His Excellency, leaves us with hope indeed.
By taking this uncommon posture, Okezie Victor Ikpeazu, Ph.d, has simply proclaimed that man should dare not go into competition with God Almighty.
Excellence means something that is outstanding or extremely good. It buttresses perfection. Even Jesus Christ, in Mark 10:17-22, rebuked a man not to call Him good for it is God alone that is good.
No wonder the wisdom of man is foolishness before God. Otherwise, why on earth should man, after the grace of waking up from the dark uncertainties of the night, decide to rub shoulders with God Almighty by arrogating to himself the title, Excellency?
The Governor Ikpeazu example of incomparable humility is a further challenge to parents.
The upbringing of a child matters a lot. If a child is trained in the ways of the Lord, he or she would always have the fear of God and would vehemently detest comparing himself or herself with God, not to talk of impersonating titles that erroneously place them on social equilibrium with God Almighty.
We must appreciate the untiring efforts and roles played by the late parents of Governor Okezie Victor Ikpeazu for giving the good people of Abia State a very humble yet progressive Governor.
State Publicity Secretary.