A UBA trainee, two rulebooks, one public trial

There was something about the viral video of the young UBA trainee greeting Tony Elumelu that bothered me. It was not the correction itself. Senior executives are entitled to decide how they want to be addressed, and employees should respect that preference once it has been made clear. What bothered me was how quickly a young graduate became the villain in a conversation that may actually tell us much more about corporate communication than about her manners.

The incident occurred during the graduation ceremony of UBA’s 2026 Graduate Management Accelerated Programme. UBA says more than 700 young professionals completed the programme and that more than 5,000 young graduates have gone through GMAP since it began. In the video, the trainee stood up and said, “Good morning, Tony,” after which Elumelu corrected her and told her to call him “Mr Elumelu” or “TOE”.

The young woman immediately adjusted. She repeated the greeting as “Good morning, Mr Elumelu” and continued with her question. There was no argument, no attempt to challenge the chairman and no refusal to comply with his instruction. Yet once the video spread online, the conversation quickly shifted from what happened in that room to what people believed the young woman represented: Gen Z, poor upbringing, lack of respect, low emotional intelligence and the supposed decline of Nigerian values.

I think we may be missing a more interesting possibility. What if she was simply following the communication culture she had been taught at work? I cannot independently confirm that UBA instructed her or other trainees to address senior executives by their first names, so I would not state that as established fact. But the idea deserves serious consideration because first-name corporate culture is hardly foreign to Nigerian banking.

In fact, some of the strongest evidence comes from the history of the banking industry itself. Academic research into Guaranty Trust Bank’s organisational culture records that the bank deliberately introduced informality into a traditionally hierarchical Nigerian workplace and required people across ranks to relate on first-name terms. The research notes that calling an older person by the first name was initially difficult for younger Nigerian employees, but that the policy applied without exception.

That was the culture established around GTBank’s founders, Fola Adeola and the late Tayo Aderinokun. GTBank’s own history confirms that Adeola and Aderinokun were among the bank’s early founders, with Adeola serving as the first managing director and Aderinokun as the first deputy managing director. Historical research describes the two men as being addressed simply as “Fola” and “Tayo” by employees, even though they occupied the highest positions in the organisation.

Tony Elumelu himself has an interesting history with this issue. He became managing director and CEO of Standard Trust Bank in 1997, and STB later merged with UBA in 2005 under his leadership. Many former STB employees recalled that Elumelu insisted employees call him Tony, while newspaper accounts of the period surrounding the merger described his subordinates addressing him as Tony during meetings with him.

The same accounts said the relaxed first-name atmosphere encouraged people to express their views freely, even when disagreeing with him. As someone who worked in the STB/HEIRS Group, I witnessed this first-name policy.

That history makes the present incident even more interesting. The man who once operated in a corporate environment where subordinates called him Tony has now publicly told a young trainee that she should call him Mr Elumelu or TOE. There is nothing wrong with that change; people can change their preferences, circumstances and understanding of leadership. But when an organisation has a culture that encourages informality, any change in that culture needs to be communicated clearly, especially to young employees who are being trained to fit into the organisation.

This is where organisations need to be careful. A workplace can have one set of rules for internal communication and another for particular ceremonial or external situations, but employees need to know where the lines are. A trainee who is taught that first-name communication signals openness, equality and accessibility may reasonably apply that principle when speaking to a senior executive. If the executive has a different preference, the appropriate response is to correct the employee and clarify the rule, rather than allowing the employee to become a public lesson in bad manners.

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There is also a broader Nigerian cultural dimension here. In much of Nigerian society, age and status influence how people address one another, and many young Nigerians would naturally hesitate before calling a much older person by his first name, particularly someone occupying the highest office in their organisation. That instinct is real. But so is the corporate culture that many Nigerian companies deliberately created to reduce excessive hierarchy and make senior executives more approachable.

The problem comes when those two cultures meet without adequate explanation. The young employee brings one set of expectations from society. The organisation gives her another set of expectations. Then a senior executive introduces a third expectation at the moment of interaction. If the employee gets it wrong, everyone suddenly blames the employee for failing to “read the room”.

But who taught her what the room required? That is the question I would rather ask than join the chorus against her. Emotional intelligence certainly includes reading situations, but organisations should not use “read the room” as an excuse for leaving employees to guess what the room requires. Good corporate communication reduces unnecessary guessing by making expectations explicit.

There is another lesson here for young professionals. Even in organisations with a strong first-name culture, context still matters. A trainee should understand that an informal internal relationship does not automatically eliminate hierarchy, especially during a formal public event. When unsure, the safest approach is to observe how others address the person or ask discreetly. But that is advice for professional development, not a reason to publicly humiliate someone who made a single mistake.

And there is a lesson for senior executives as well. When a young employee makes a communication mistake, the correction is only part of the leadership responsibility. The leader also has an opportunity to teach everyone watching what the organisation’s culture actually requires. A brief correction followed by a calm explanation can turn an awkward moment into a useful lesson; a public rebuke can turn the employee into the lesson.

The UBA incident should therefore prompt companies to examine their own communication policies. If employees are expected to use first names internally, does that apply to the chairman, board members and senior executives? Does it apply during formal ceremonies? What happens when an employee meets a senior executive outside the office? Are there different rules for internal meetings, public events and interactions with clients? These questions may sound trivial until somebody’s career is judged based on an unwritten rule.

I do not know whether this particular trainee was instructed to call senior UBA executives by their first names. The available public evidence does not establish that, and I would not turn an unverified assumption into a fact. What we do know is that first-name corporate culture has deep roots in Nigerian banking, that Elumelu himself was once addressed as Tony by subordinates at Standard Trust Bank, and that the young woman promptly complied when he told her how he preferred to be addressed.

So perhaps we should ease up on the young woman. She may have made a mistake in judgement, but one awkward greeting does not tell us that she lacks manners, intelligence or emotional intelligence. She is a young professional at the beginning of her career, and the adults and institutions around her should be interested in helping her learn rather than turning one moment into a verdict on her character.

After all, organisations spend enormous amounts of money recruiting and training young people. UBA itself says its GMAP is designed to develop the next generation of African banking professionals. If that is the goal, then perhaps the most useful response to this incident is not to crucify a trainee for getting the room wrong but to make sure the next trainee knows exactly how the room is supposed to be read.