Yesterday, a video went viral in which Nigerian billionaire and Group Chairman of UBA, Tony Elumelu, inadvertently drew the attention of a young female mentee at a public event to the fact that she could not simply refer to him by his first name.

The lady subsequently corrected herself. The incident has, understandably, generated widespread debate.

In the midst of the conversation, someone dug up a video of an interview Tony Elumelu gave in the UK, specifically at Stanford Business School. In that video, the female host addressed him simply as “Tony”.

Because I had shared the initial video, someone tagged me in the Stanford video and asked for my opinion.

I think this Stanford video actually helps us put the matter in proper perspective and reinforces the argument some of us have been making in support of Tony Elumelu.

There is something called: high-context culture and low-context culture. African and Asian societies are largely considered high-context cultures, while Europe and many Western societies are generally regarded as low-context cultures.

If you move through life without understanding cultural nuances in different places and spaces, you will constantly offend people without even realising it.

For instance, in Ghana and many parts of Africa, it is considered disrespectful to interact with people using your left hand as a gesture. In Europe and elsewhere, you can do the same thing and nobody may even notice or criticise you.

Comparing the Nigerian and UK Videos

My argument is that this whole conversation about using first names is ultimately about context, environment, philosophy, and familiarity.

I have worked for 21 years, but Multimedia Group was the first place where I encountered an HR policy that was very clear about the use of first names. I struggled with it, especially when it came to top managers.

The first day I met the Group CEO, Kwasi Twum, at work, he insisted that if I didn't call him Kwasi, he wouldn't respond to me. It was a huge struggle for me, but I had to adjust.

Why was it a struggle? Because it wasn't the cultural norm in Ghana, and I had never experienced that philosophy in any corporate environment before.

But take this from me: the same Kwasi Twum may not necessarily find it pleasant if he leaves that MGL corporate environment, goes somewhere else, and a young man of my age who doesn't know him personally simply calls him by his first name.

What has changed?

Not necessarily his philosophy. The environment has changed. The familiarity is absent. And the context is different.

The Stanford scenario was clearly an interview within a university setting, with an audience seated and a much older person interviewing Tony Elumelu. Secondly, a business school environment is, in many ways, similar to a corporate environment where people engage with a senior business executive professionally.

Most importantly, this was not an African cultural setting. It was in the West, where the use of first names is generally normalised, including in many professional and institutional settings.

But in an African setting, where a young mentee who is also a stranger gets up and calls a man of Tony Elumelu's pedigree and age simply by his first name, outside a corporate environment where that has been established as the norm, I can understand why it may be considered off and contrary to protocol and etiquette.

This is why we need to understand the nuances and appreciate the context.

And frankly, I like the fact that we now have these two situations to compare because they demonstrate the point perfectly.

Is it true that in Europe and the West, calling people by their first names is generally more common, with less emphasis on age and social status? Yes.

Is that the norm within African culture? No. Does that make one culture or philosophy better than the other? Absolutely not.

It simply means that cultures have different social codes, and sometimes the same behaviour can be perfectly acceptable in one environment and considered disrespectful in another.

Context matters.