Respect, Age and the Nigerian Paradox: Bridging Culture and the Gen Z Moment

Recently, a conversation with a much younger friend I often refer to as my younger sister left me reflecting on something many of us in Nigeria experience but rarely interrogate deeply.

She had called a service provider to make an inquiry. The woman on the other end knew her through me, as my younger sister. During the conversation, my sister addressed the woman by her first name.

The response was immediate and corrective.

What followed was a long explanation about how calling an elder by their first name was disrespectful. She was reminded of her age and told that the service provider was old enough to be her mother or even her grandmother. In our culture, she was told, elders should not be addressed that way. Young people these days, she added, are abandoning tradition.

My sister was deeply upset.

Her response when relaying the information to me, a millennial stuck between both generations, was simple: “Respect is earned, not demanded.”

Both reactions are understandable.

On one hand, it was an older Nigerian demanding the respect she felt had been lost in today’s younger generation. On the other hand, it was a younger person who had no problem with respect itself, but took issue with the entitlement with which it was being demanded.

And in that moment, I realised that the exchange perfectly captures a quiet tension that exists in modern Nigeria between age, respect and evolving social norms.

In many Nigerian cultures, respect is deeply tied to age. The language itself reflects this. Titles such as “Aunty”, “Uncle”, “Ma”, “Sir”, “Oga”, and “Madam” are not merely polite additions. They are signals of acknowledgement within a social hierarchy. They communicate recognition of someone’s seniority and experience.

For many older Nigerians, being addressed by a younger person without these markers can feel dismissive. It is interpreted not simply as casual speech but as a rejection of cultural values that emphasise humility and respect for elders.

But for younger generations — particularly Gen Z — the interpretation can be very different.

Young Africans today have grown up in a far more globalised and digitally connected world. Social media, international workplaces, digital collaboration and startup culture have normalised first-name interactions across age groups.

In many professional environments, calling someone by their first name signals openness, equality and approachability rather than disrespect.

For them, respect is less about titles and hierarchy and more about behaviour, competence and authenticity.

This is where the friction begins.

The same society that encourages young people to be confident, innovative and globally competitive still holds deeply rooted expectations about deference to age. As a result, many young Nigerians find themselves navigating invisible rules. In one room, calling someone by their first name signals confidence. In another, it can be interpreted as arrogance or poor upbringing.

The workplace often becomes the stage where this tension plays out most visibly.

Even in organisations that promote flat structures, collaboration and progressive values, subtle forms of age-based authority still appear. It is not uncommon to hear phrases like “I am older than you” used as a closing argument in professional disagreements.

Seniority sometimes becomes a shield against questioning, even when competence and expertise should be the determining factors.

At the same time, dismissing cultural respect for elders entirely would ignore an important part of Nigeria’s social fabric.

Nigerian societies have long relied on intergenerational knowledge. Elders have traditionally served as custodians of wisdom, mediators of conflict and anchors of community life. The language of respect developed as a way of acknowledging that role.

So the real question today is not whether respect should exist. It absolutely should.

The question is what respect should look like in a society where generational experiences are increasingly different.

As someone who works closely with young Nigerians and has mentored many of them over the years, one thing I have come to appreciate is that respect must be reciprocal. It cannot exist only as something demanded by age. When it is framed purely as entitlement, it risks alienating younger generations who place a high value on authenticity, fairness, and mutual regard.

In my professional work, particularly within an organisation that prioritises youth voice and leadership, I am constantly reminded of the importance of creating space for young people to be heard. Too often, decisions about young people are made without them in the room. One principle we hold strongly is simple: where young people cannot yet speak for themselves, we ensure their voices are represented — and where they can speak, we ensure they are part of the conversation.

That commitment has also added to how I think about respect between generations. Listening, after all, is one of the most powerful forms of respect we can demonstrate.

Yet respect also cannot be stripped entirely of cultural context. A society that completely abandons its cultural language of respect risks losing the social glue that has long helped different generations coexist.

This is where the middle ground becomes important.

Respect must evolve from hierarchy to reciprocity.

Older generations can recognise that younger people operate in a world that is structurally different from the one they grew up in — one shaped by global communication, flatter professional structures and new ideas about leadership and identity.

Younger generations, in turn, can appreciate that cultural expressions of respect are not necessarily tools of oppression or control. In many cases, they are simply expressions of courtesy embedded in community life.

The goal should not be to erase culture or dismiss generational shifts. Instead, it should be to build a shared understanding of respect that allows both perspectives to coexist.

Perhaps this begins with conversation.

Families, workplaces and communities need more honest dialogue about generational expectations. Instead of assuming disrespect or entitlement, there is value in asking a simple question:

What does respect mean to you?

Because culture is not static. It evolves with the people who live within it. And perhaps the real test of a healthy culture is not how rigidly it protects old rules, but how gracefully it allows different generations to meet each other halfway.

So I will end with a question as I think out loud:

Should titles be the primary marker of respect? Or should respect be measured more by behaviour, character, and how we treat one another — regardless of age?