The use of the title ‘Professor’ as in ‘Professor Asimesi’ in Ghanaian conventional usage is meant to imply, ‘Asimesi, who has been so appointed or promoted by the university or a degree awarding institution in the discipline he/she professes. And this high attainment is self-evident in his /her research or academic output, so assessed.’
In the misuse of titles in Ghana, the problem is further compounded by the fact that such promotional attainments as professor have no verifiable documentation such as a certificate, or public ceremony.
Only the relevant source institution can testify to the elevation. In situations where one seeks to transfer one’s professorship title to another institution, that institution has every right to subject your research output to further assessment before the professorship title is accepted in the new setting. This has indeed been applied in many universities and is accepted as conventional. Simply put, professorships are not automatically transferable unless confirmed by appointment in another institution. This is not the case, however, with a degree title.
But of course, there have been metaphorical uses of the title professor in popular senses, and often in jest. Indeed, the title Professor popularly used for Azuma Nelson, the boxing legend, may have been spontaneously conferred in the heat of celebrating his world honours. It is a metaphorical honorific.
Metaphorically, the title ‘professor’ portrays Azumah as having reached the zenith of his professional accomplishments as a boxer. Yet in his case, a more suitable title later conferred, ‘Barima’ as in Barima Azumah Nelson, more aptly conveyed his accomplishment.
Indeed, in a situation where the Professor title was used sometimes in jest, the indigenous epithet, ‘Barima,’ (Man of Courage) was considered more appropriate and in keeping with indigenous accolades normally conferred on brave or militant heroes.
Other metaphorical uses of academic titles include the use of the title professor by magicians in Ghana’s past. Then in the late seventies, after General Kutu Acheampong had given national honors to Coach Jones Attuquayefio, the latter granted a media interview where he said, elsewhere in Britain, his title would have been Sir.
The following day, Ghanaian Dailies picked up Jones’ wishes, and applied the title to him, as Sir Jones Attuquayefio. A few months ago this year, Sir Jones Attuquayefio himself conferred the title Sir, on Coach Silas Tetteh who had led the Black Satellites to the pinnacle of world fame in Egypt.
Professional Accolades
The accretion of titles is compounded by degrees conferred in professional disciplines, as well as titles bestowed by professional bodies on fellows elected to membership.
These fellowships, together with academic degrees may be serially strung together in post nominal positions to index the prestigious chain of professional networks the individual is associated with. Such professional associations include medical, engineering, architecture, planning, public relations, and academies of learning.
When applied in both pre-nominal and post nominal positions, the chain of honors and titles then become a miniature resume, in which the individual’s academic status, degrees, titles, professional bodies, universities attended, are all sequentially compressed. In value terms, the longer the chain of titles, the higher the plaudits. But one may also add prestigious centers of learning where the titles were conferred, and the distinguished professional bodies cited.
In a nutshell, the history and geography of one’s academic sojourn can sometimes be discerned at a glance.
Emeritus Honours
The title ‘Emeritus’ in academia is conferred on retired Professors, who are still active in their discipline, and agree to spend time in the University as a subject matter expert, mentoring or advising. At the University of Ghana, the award carries no financial reward. The university confers the title and gives the honouree all amenities and conveniences necessary for the execution of their duties. It means the recipient of the honour, still deserves to be called Professor, even though retired.
The title is indeed most relevant where retirement from academia, would have required relinquishing the title professor. It is presumed that people leave academia on retirement and take on other business, administrative, or political responsibilities. Such people drop the title Professor, or could refer to themselves as retired professor since they are no longer in academia. Emeritus means you still merit the high title professor even though retired.
Since its establishment, the University of Ghana has conferred Emeritus honours on 15 professors, nine of whom are fellows of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences. In certain universities, the title is automatically conferred on all retired professors in good standing, while in others such as University of Ghana; it is subject to deliberations and a vote.
The title ‘emeritus’ is so abused in Ghana that even though used largely as a supplement to the professorial, people have used Professor Emeritus, even where the professorship has not been earned in the first place. It is indeed known that dignitaries apply it in self reference, and sometimes in juxtaposition with traditional titles. On my last check, the title may have suddenly appeared on the parliamentary roll.
In Ghana, retired professors retain the title professor even where they have ended up in politics as ministers, parliamentarians or ambassadors. Where they are members of the Council of State, they are still called professor. And where they are President of the Republic, having left the classroom for over 20 years, they are still Professor. Indeed once a professor always a professor, according Ghanaian conventions.
Honourable
In Ghana, the title Honourable, has been applied to Ministers of State, Members of Parliament, and lately even to District and Municipal Chief Executives, and assembly men and women.
In traditions where we adopted these terms, the title Honourable referred to the office, and not the person or occupant. Thus one may have Mr Asimesi, Honourable Member of Parliament for Aowin, or Bolga, and not Honourable Asimesi.
Unfortunately in Ghana here, as in many other spheres of life, we borrow terms and bastardize them, or rather adapt them to suit unsustainable values. Here, even after these honourable have long ceased to occupy their positions, they retain the titles. Once an Honourable, always an Honourable!
High titles appear unwilling to go away without a fight
In several cases though, the professorial title is not necessarily used by the appointees themselves, but by over- zealous third parties. Given opportunities for self-reference, some would perhaps drop the title.
Yet as Ghanaians and perhaps Africans in general, we have a penchant for ceremony, pomp and pageantry, as well as high-faulting epithets and titles of honour, well aware of the enormous prestige they bestow, and the political patronage they enable.
Remarkably, in spite of the humble financial rewards that academics generally attract, academic titles and honours appear in high demand even by the rich and famous. Often times, huge donations have been given by wealthy philanthropists to universities in hopes of attracting lofty academic honours and credentials.
National honours
Indeed, title explosion has been so pervasive; it may even have affected the value and quality of our national honours. In a highly polarised environment such as Ghana’s, national awards for example, stand the risk of losing their value due to overwhelming political patronage and sponsorship.
Our national honours, otherwise considered as epitomising the highest recognition by the State, have sometimes scored low grades in their failure to look beyond the partisan horizon. To conceal this failure, national awards have ignored to put on record the recipient’s record of accomplishments that inspired the honours.
Distinguished contributors to national development have lamentably gone for awards without citations, leaving many to question the patriotic foundations upon which national honours have been earned.
In the absence of publicly read citations, the nation loses a golden opportunity to celebrate and indeed put on record, the nation’s cherished values that are considered worthy of perpetuation. Last year’s national honours partly lost its value by the sheer multiplicity of honourees, some 250 of them, as well as the tremendous partisan pressure exerted on the process, compelling some distinguished nominees to avoid or boycott the public event.
Otherwise national honours should be landmarks, seeking to leave in the trail of time, flashpoints of the society’s finest moments in history, and the individuals to whom credit is owed.
It is such events of which national epics are sung or written by griots, poets, and historians; and we stand the risk of distorting the nation’s history, if we manipulate or massage honours for temporary gains. If titles and awards have been deflated through manipulation, it may also mean as a society, we have missed opportunities for giving praise where praise is due, and have thus compelled individuals to indulge in self-granulation, and minions to arrogate to themselves the power to bestow honours.
Traditional Titles
But the use of credentials to mark accomplishments is only a reinforcement of prevailing conventions and practices within traditional society. Titles are used as prefixes and as by-names and honorifics associated with positions of authority. There is indeed a plethora of epithets and appellations sometimes uniquely associated with certain stool names: Daasebre, ‘Magnanimous King, that deserves unlimited credit;’ Otumfuor, ‘Omnipotent, All-Powerful;’ Oseadeeyor, ‘He who backs words with deeds;’ Osagyefo, Gallant Warlord and Conqueror; Okatakyie, ‘Protective Armor/Man of Valour;’ Kantamanto, ‘He who does not default on oath;’ Oye-adee-yie, ‘Cobbler of broken property.’
These titles, when prefixed to stool names, are poetic capsules of traits and attributes for which the individual or his stool, is known. The individual may be an epitome of benevolence, nationalism, courage, militancy, hospitality, oratory or ferocity. Oftentimes, such appellations are only a segment of longer verses, that are recited by bards and praise poets to boost the image and credentials of high socio-political personages.
Well Deserved Accolades
Significantly, these include the title, Agyewodin, ‘One who has truly earned his accolades.’ This unique title is indeed an appellation that defines the major features of title acquisition. It implies that a respectable title must be truly earned; it must be incident driven; true titles are not to be self-conferred. The term, Agyewodin, implicitly repudiates self-appropriated honours; titles not voluntarily bestowed, but coerced or unduly influenced; appellations of no substance; as well as high-falutin titles conferred on minions.
The concept ‘Agyewodin’ indeed encapsulates cherished values in the art of honour bestowal. Its reflex is one other appellation, Ne din ne ne honam se.. ‘One who whose name is most compatible with his person’ once again pointing to the high premium society places on propriety of credentials conferred. An Akan proverb translates as, ‘if God does not enthrone you as king, and you thrust an empty crown upon yourself, no one genuflects before you.’
But traditional titles occasionally portray intellectual and philosophical traits in a notable personality. Titles like Onyansafo, ‘The Sage,’ and in recent times, King Solomon, ‘Wise King,’ or philosopher, have occasionally been applied, to acknowledge an individual’s natural gift in philosophical deliberations or indigenous jurisprudence. The title Nana Susubiribi associated with the Omanhene of Asokore and fellow of the Academy may depict the stool occupant as an epitome of thoughtful deliberations, allied with a purposeful construction of knowledge.
In the past six years, at least two fellows of the Academy, have had bestowed on them the title, Nwomasuahene, King or Lord of Learning to mark their distinguished contribution to learning or education in their respective localities. Nwomasuahene was first bestowed by the people of Ekumfi on Professor Kwesi Andam of blessed memory; and soon after the people of Larteh conferred Nwomasuahene on Justice Kofi Date Bah. The new title is probably equivalent to doctor of letters.
Title Juxtaposition
In Ghana’s contemporary history, where traditional norms have been exposed to trends within the western academy, the juxtaposition of traditional and western academic titles has not been uncommon. Kwame Nkrumah, for example, did it in an attempt to deploy African traditional institutions and values to meet post colonial challenges.
The title Osagyefo, ‘Gallant Warlord and Conqueror,’ borrowed from the lexicon of Akim Abuakwa traditional appellations, eventually became Nkrumah’s official title of honor, and denotes the relentless war he waged against the forces of colonialism, before independence.
The title was bestowed by Nkrumah’s praise poet, Okyeame Boafo Akuffo, and was juxtaposed with his honorary doctorate title, enabling the nomenclature: ‘Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah.’ Significantly the title ‘Osayefo’ sequentially took precedence over the title doctor, and eventually replaced it.
Other traditional titles conferred on contemporary statesmen include Busummru, referring to a Potent Spirit bestowed on Mr Kofi Annan by the Asanteman Council in 2006 on Kofi Annan’s return to Ghana after his tour of duty as Secretary General of the United Nations.
Like the use of the title Nana pre nominally, traditional titles do not easily accommodate western titles in conventional usage. The sequence Nana Mr… is considered as irregular as Busummru Mr Annan.
It is not surprising that the Asanteman Council in 2007 directed that all chiefs of Asante, using their stool names should drop the western academic title. Sequences like Nana Professor…, Nana Dr … or Nana Emeritus Professor…have thus been abolished in the Asante kingdom. A chief who is an academic with doctoral or professorial credentials thus relinquishes these, and solely adopts the traditional title in formal usage in traditional settings, such as Nana Asimesi etc. in spite of Asimesi’s several academic honours.
The advocacy here has been for the recognition of the royal title in Asante as a supreme all-encompassing honorific, not liable to cross cultural juxtaposition, when used as a titular prefix. It asserts the supremacy of indigenous values; but also implies that the state can only vouch for the authenticity of titles conferred within its own jurisdiction, and not others of foreign or unverifiable provenance.
Responsibilities
Winding down, let me say that titles, accolades and honours conferred, do not just celebrate venerable feats and achievements. What we have often missed as a society is that, titles and honorifics also convey associated responsibilities expected of venerable offices. Honourees are expected to consistently live up to set standards.
A doctor of philosophy, PhD degree is not just a title, but also conveys the expectation that the quality of knowledge production both inside and outside the academic forum, would henceforth not fall short of a doctoral degree holder. In several cases, of course, the high expectations have not been met, leading to public disappointment.
How many times have we not heard on radio phone in programs, expressions of utter disappointment in holders of lofty academic titles, who have not lived up to expectation? We hear such statements as, Ah! Professor paa nie! Or kae wei aa ye professor? (Is it really a professor who said or did that?) Or to be on safer grounds, Ah! Pro-Vice Chancellor paa nie, in situations where a dignified academic title bearer has fallen woefully below required standards in word, deed or knowledge production.
The balance between privilege and responsibility is sometimes dramatised in situations where chiefs’ appellations are being recited in public. In the late 1980s while I was conducting research at the Manhyia palace in Kumasi, I witnessed a rather dramatic scene while the appellations of the Otumfuor Opoku Ware II, the then King of Ashanti, were being recited by his bards.
As the praise poets took turns in chanting long strings of panegyrics in the king’s honour, I did see the King neither grin, bloat nor respond with a smile, or cheer. To the contrary he looked pensive and thoughtful, then suddenly picked a handkerchief and wiped tears from his eyes. When I later asked one of the elders about the unusual spectacle, he explained that the King might be wondering to himself whether he measured up to the high standards recounted in the epithets, originally inspired by his great ancestors. The great appellations then remind him of the task ahead, as well as compel instant self-assessment.
Title conferment should then be considered more as a responsibility, indeed a burden, than a privilege. At best, it should challenge honourees to stay the course and not deflate the exacting standards for which the honour was bestowed. The maintenance or servicing of one’s honour or title should then become almost a lifelong responsibility.
In the case of the Academy, honour bestowed on membership confers a responsibility, to collectively set and maintain standards for academic excellence in our daily and professional lives, but also to ensure adherence to excellence and high academic standards through timely interventions.
Standards Setting
Significantly, the academy set the pace a few years ago, when in 2006 plagiarism was detected in a book originally an MPhil thesis which had been submitted as an entry for a book award at the Academy.
Suspecting egregious plagiarism in the book, the Academy quickly drew the attention of the relevant university that awarded the degree. The University carried out further investigations and established a clear case of plagiarism, which it had earlier failed to notice.
Subsequently, the University revoked the Mphil degree earlier conferred, and publicized the retraction. That way, the Academy publicly repudiated intellectual dishonesty that had earlier eluded the University’s vigilance, and enabled the University to hold up fraud as a serious breach of academic integrity.
In drawing attention to excellence and the tenets of academic quality assurance, the academy and academics in general, need not gloat in self-celebration of academic titles, honors and accolades received. The burden imposed by titular epithets and prefixes, should rather humble us all. In a country full of academic title bearers including a surfeit of professors, professor emeriti, and professional degree holders, as well as experts with sonorous credentials, one can only lament the nation’s relative failure or inability to significantly transform the quality of human life within our environment.
It is our social responsibility as academics, that needs greater emphasis, and not the flaunting of accrued titles and credentials.
Conclusion
Finally, the accretion, or accumulation of academic and professional titles does not make honorees the sole agents or standard bearers in national development. National development is a collective responsibility with a multitude of actors and agents. When Kwame Nkrumah established the Academy 50 years ago to play a pivotal role in national development, the foundation members he selected were from a variety of professions, and at various levels of the academic ladder. It was not a parade of titled academics.
The twenty foundation members consisted of one professor, two senior lecturers, two lecturers, one research fellow, one Justice of the Appeal Court, the Chief Justice, the Attorney General, a barrister at law, an economist and author, five educationists, one medical officer, one physician specialist, and Osagyefo himself, the Prime Minister. There were nine doctoral degree holders out of the twenty foundation members, and two women. The spread of professions and the various levels from whence they came, demonstrated the multiple needs of the new nation state, and the variety of manpower needed to champion the nation’s development.
It behoves the Academy to stay the original course and invite to fellowship not only academics, and professors, but improve its record of inviting to fellowship, a variety of scholars and practitioners, including people from industry, various professional groups, the world of business, and young promising scholars, whether or not these have chains of academic honorifics.
Titles themselves do not a nation make. As an Academy with very high achievers, we should indeed enable our actions to speak louder than our titles.
The author is President of Central University College and a Fellow of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences.
