In Eastern Nigeria, an Igbo Man Without a Title Is Practically Walking Naked

 

In Igboland, a naked name now feels like social death; chiefs multiply, integrity disappears, and even “Member” becomes emergency oxygen for wounded pride.  The red cap once announced responsibility. But in Igboland today, title gluttony can dress thieves as saviors, cowards as lions, and chaos merchants as men of peace.

I am an Igbo man from Eastern Nigeria. My only title is “Dr.” I earned it in a university, through research, examinations, and years of academic work. That is enough for me.

But in Igboland, “Dr.” sometimes looks dangerously underdressed.

A bare name frightens us. It stands there alone—thin, exposed, shivering in public. We rush to cover it with “Chief.” We button it with “Honorable.” We wrap it in “Ozo.” We hang “KSJ” (Knight of St. John) behind it. If nothing else is available, we throw “Member” over its shoulders and pray nobody notices the poverty underneath.

The ceremony is already 45 minutes late when the master of ceremonies grabs the microphone.

“Ladies and gentlemen, distinguished personalities, royal fathers, political stakeholders, captains of industry, pillars of development, and lovers of progress—”

Nobody has been introduced yet.

He inhales.

“Please welcome Chief Engineer Dr. Desmond Okafor, Ozo Igbo Ndu I of Ohafia!” (the name has been changed to retain anonymity).

The hall erupts.

“Ekwueme!”

Desmond rises. Slowly. Carefully. He is wearing a red cap, white lace, coral beads, Italian shoes, and sunglasses inside a dark hall. His stomach arrives before the rest of him. Tweo young men follow, carrying his telephone and dignity.

The drummer strikes harder.

“Chief!”

“Engineer!”

“Doctor!”

“Ozo!”

Desmond waves like a governor who has just commissioned a bridge built with three lanes of promises and one lane of concrete.

Nobody asks what kind of engineer he is.

Nobody asks where he earned the doctorate.

Nobody asks what “Igbo Ndu” means in practical terms.

This is not an investigation. It is an introduction.

Next comes “Ichie Humphrey Muomelite, Onwa I of Mbaise, KSJ” (the name has been changed to retain anonymity).

Humphrey has never attended a university. That does not matter. Education is only one road to a long name, and we Igbo people have constructed several bypasses. Humphrey is now “Onwa”—the Moon of Mbaise. Whether he has ever brought light to Mbaise is irrelevant. The moon does not submit an annual report.

The microphone keeps moving.

“Chief Barrister Dr. Chukwudi Nwafor, Akajiugo I of Nnewi” (the name has been changed to retain anonymity).

“High Chief Sir Emmanuel Ezeani, Omeiheukwu of Aguata, KSM.”

“Chief Architect Professor Boniface Nwankwo, Ide Mmili I of Orlu.”

“Honorable Chief Dr. Patrick Umeh, Ebubedike na London, Ozo Udo I of Umuahia.”

By the time Patrick’s name lands, two children are asleep, the fried rice is cold, and the bride has begun to regret both the wedding and democracy.

I know this theater because it is our theater. I am not peeping into Igbo culture through a foreign window. I grew from the soil of Eastern Nigeria. I know the sound of the ogene (a metal gong). I know the pride of the red cap. I know the political temperature of a hometown meeting. I know that an Igbo man may forgive you for stepping on his shoe, but if you omit his title from a printed program, you have not made a mistake. You have launched a military operation.

“Who prepared this program?” he asks.

“The planning committee.”

“Where is my title?”

“We wrote your name.”

“My name?”

“Yes, sir.”

He looks at the page as if it contains his death certificate.

“You wrote only my name?”

That word—only—carries the insult.

His name is present, but his importance is missing.

Traditional Igbo titles did not begin as comedy. They came from a serious social and political world. Many communities in Eastern Nigeria were decentralized long before British colonial rule. Authority often rested in village assemblies, councils of elders, age grades, lineage groups, women’s organizations, and titled societies. Outside places with stronger centralized institutions, such as Nri, Onitsha, and Arochukwu, there was often no absolute king handing out status from a palace.

A person built a public reputation. Wealth mattered, but so did character, family standing, community service, age, achievement, and trust. A title could mark the point at which private success became public responsibility.

A. I. Okpoko’s scholarly work on Igbo traditional titles identifies Ozo as one of the most significant institutions in Igboland. Ozo titleholders historically provided leadership at lineage, village, and village-group levels. The “Catholics & Cultures” research project also notes that Ozo conferred status, leadership, and serious responsibility. In some communities, Ozo titleholders helped settle disputes and represented moral authority.

That was the old bargain.

The community gave a man honor.

The man gave the community integrity.

Today, the community may still deliver the honor. Integrity may send its apologies.

A contractor can abandon a village road after collecting the money, return in December with 200 bags of rice, and become “Omeiheukwu I of the village”—where  “Omeiheukwu” is an Igbo term meaning “the man who does great things.”

A politician can divert public money meant for a health clinic, donate 10 plastic chairs to the town union, and receive “Aku Ruo Ulo”—the wealth that reached home.

A land grabber can seize his younger brother’s inheritance and become “Oputa Obie”—the man whose arrival brings peace to the family.

A notorious coward can become “Agu”—the lion.

A human petrol station for quarrels can become “Udo”—the embodiment of peace.

The title says one thing. The life says another. Everybody hears both. The drummer simply plays louder.

This hunger becomes truly dangerous inside our social clubs and hometown associations. We Igbo people can form an association anywhere. Give us four plastic chairs, one bottle of cognac, and a WhatsApp group. By sunset, we will have a constitution.

By midnight, the association will have a president, vice president, secretary, assistant secretary, financial secretary, assistant financial secretary, public-relations officer, provost, social secretary, welfare officer, chief whip, patron, grand patron, women’s leader, youth leader, chairman of elders, and chairman of the committee created to investigate the former chairman.

The association has 14 active members and 19 offices.

That is not poor planning. That is title security.

The real crisis comes when an event program is prepared. The planners first list the heavyweights.

“Chief Dr. Obinna Eze, Ogbuefi I of Awka.”

“Sir Anthony Nwankwo, KSJ.”

“Honorable Barrister Emeka Umeh, Akuatuegwu of Ihiala.”

Then somebody notices Collins (the name has been changed to retain anonymity).

Collins has no traditional title. No knighthood. No doctorate. No political office. No flourishing business. No regular job. But Collins has a voice that can break glass. He attends every meeting, pays some dues, owes the rest, and remembers every insult committed against him since 2009.

“What shall we put beside Collins’s name?” the secretary asks.

“Nothing.”

The room freezes.

“You want this event to hold?”

The planners understand. Collins may not have enough money to sponsor the event, but he has enough bitterness to bury it. Leave his name out, and the caterer may hear that the date has changed. The musician may receive a fake cancellation. The association’s WhatsApp group may wake up to 74 voice notes, each lasting 8 minutes.

The chairman leans forward.

“Write ‘Member.’”

The secretary obeys.

“Mr. Collins Obi, Member.”

Peace enters the room.

Then comes “Mr. Jude Nkemakolam, Member.”

After him: “Mr. Peter Uchenna, Member.”

If Peter is especially troublesome, he receives a promotion.

“Mr. Peter Uchenna, Distinguished Member.”

Distinguished by what?

By the danger of leaving him undistinguished.

At the event, Collins picks up the program. His eyes search quickly. He finds his name.

“Mr. Collins Obi, Member.”

He smiles.

The organizers have successfully manufactured a title from basic grammar.

The ordinary word “member” has become a medal. It announces that Collins belongs. He may not be chief, doctor, knight, professor, engineer, barrister, or honorable, but he is not nobody. The program has given him emergency social oxygen.

Some Igbo men take another road. They are teachers, civil servants, administrators, or modest professionals. They have respectable jobs but cannot afford the financial demands attached to major traditional title-taking. They still want something to stand behind their names like an armed guard.

Then the church opens a door.

Mr. Michael Onyejekwe becomes “Sir Michael Onyejekwe, KSJ.”

Mr. Anthony Ekwunife becomes “Sir Anthony Ekwunife, KSJI.”

Mr. Gabriel Nwachukwu becomes “Sir Gabriel Nwachukwu, KSM (Knight of St. Mulumba).”

The name has entered the alphabet market.

The Knights of St. John International is a legitimate Roman Catholic fraternal order, not an Igbo title factory. Its official history reaches back to its incorporation in New York in 1886. The organization says it has more than 19,000 members across 9 countries, including Nigeria. Its stated mission centers on faith, charity, fraternity, and service.

Those are noble obligations.

But give an Igbo man a uniform, sword, plume, rank, and letters after his name, and heaven must help the master of ceremonies who forgets one comma.

“Why did you write Michael Onyejekwe?”

“That is your name, sir.”

“I am a knight.”

“I know.”

“Does the program know?”

The church may have called him to service. The printed program must call him “Sir.”

Knighthood itself does not cure ordinary human weakness. In 2022, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria suspended the activities of the Knights of St. John International in the country after a serious internal dispute and failure to obey reconciliation directives. The suspension was lifted after compliance.

There is the irony. Men carrying swords for Christian unity still required bishops to stop them from fighting among themselves. The sword hung correctly. Peace did not.

Our women understand the title market too, although Igbo patriarchy historically gave men more public room to parade traditional honors. Some important title systems remained male-centered, and scholarly research has criticized the Ozo institution for reinforcing male dominance in parts of Igboland.

Still, nobody should mistake limited public titles for female powerlessness. Igbo women have long exercised influence through market networks, church groups, women’s associations, family institutions, and organizations of married women and lineage daughters.

The 1929 Aba Women’s Riots remains the strongest evidence. Thousands of women across Eastern Nigeria challenged colonial taxation plans and the abuses of warrant chiefs. British colonial forces killed more than 50 women while suppressing the uprising. Those women shook an empire without placing “Chief Dr. Mrs.” before their names.

Then some modern Igbo women move to the United States or Europe. They study. They work punishing shifts. They become registered nurses, nurse practitioners, and holders of advanced degrees. Their professional credentials are earned and deserve respect.

But sometimes achievement is not enough. It must become a parade.

In Baltimore, I have encountered names displayed in styles like “Dr. (Mrs.) Cynthia Ugoji, DNP, CRNP, Nee Ada di Ora Mma” (the name has been changed to retain anonymity).

Then comes “Chief Mrs. Blessing Nwosu, MSN, RN, FNP-BC, Ugegbe Oyibo I of Owerri” (the name has been changed to retain anonymity).

Another arrives as “Lady Dr. (Mrs.) Ngozi Eze, DNP, PMHNP-BC, Lolo Ifeoma di Ora Mma.”

The grand finale may be “High Chief Dr. (Mrs.) Patricia Okafor, RN, BSN, MSN, Queen Mother of Umuahia Progressive Union” (the name has been changed to retain anonymity).

Nothing must escape.

Academic degree? Add it.

Nursing license? Add it.

Board certification? Add it.

Marital status? Add it.

Traditional praise name? Add it.

Husband’s title? Add it.

Association position? Add it.

Maiden identity? Tie it to the bumper.

The name begins to look like a vehicle transporting an entire résumé.

“May I speak with Cynthia?”

Silence.

“Mrs. Ugoji?”

More silence.

“Dr. Mrs. Cynthia Ugoji, DNP, CRNP, Nee Ada di Ora Mma?”

“Speaking.”

The British helped worsen our status hunger. Colonial administrators found decentralized Igbo government difficult to control. They wanted local agents who could collect taxes, enforce colonial orders, and report to British officials. So they appointed warrant chiefs, sometimes giving authority to men who lacked traditional legitimacy.

Power was no longer always the result of community trust. A foreign document could manufacture a chief.

Modern Nigeria has expanded the factory.

Now “Ambassadors” have never entered embassies.

“Professors” have never produced serious scholarship.

“Honorables” have never behaved honorably.

“Doctors” carry honorary degrees obtained through donations, connections, or decorated ceremonies.

“Chiefs” lead nobody.

“Excellencies” preside over failure.

The title has become a mask. The longer it is, the more carefully I inspect the face behind it.

I am not attacking every title. I am an Igbo man too, not an enemy of Igbo culture. Legitimate titles preserve history. They recognize service. They connect us to our towns, ancestors, institutions, and responsibilities. A true Ozo title should represent character. A genuine knighthood should represent faith and charity. A doctorate should represent advanced intellectual or professional work.

My target is not honor.

My target is title gluttony.

It is the hunger that makes a person feel erased unless a trumpet blows before his name. It is the vanity that turns community service into theater. It is the insecurity that forces poor Collins to wear “Member” like a bulletproof vest. It is the moral fraud that allows a thief to purchase a title describing him as the village savior.

A good name should be able to stand without crutches.

Yet the banquet continues.

The hall is packed. The titled men adjust their red caps. The knights straighten their medals. The professional women inspect the program for missing initials. Collins confirms that “Member” is securely attached to his name.

The master of ceremonies raises the microphone.

“Ladies and gentlemen, please rise for Chief Honorable Engineer Professor Dr. Sir Collins Chinedu Obi, KSJ, JP, Ozo Ugochinyere I of Arochukwu, Distinguished Member, Life Patron, Grand Patron, Chairman Emeritus, Pillar of Development, Lion of Eastern Nigeria, and Light of the Igbo Nation!”

The generator coughs.

The microphone dies.

Darkness falls.

For one honest second, the chief is silent, the knight is invisible, the professor cannot be found, and the Distinguished Member is just Collins.

 

For readers interested in a separate line of thought, the titles in my “Brief Book Series” are available on Google Play. Read them here on Google Play or in Barnes & Noble bookstore: Brief Book Series.

 

The Wig Is Still White, but the Profession Is Broke: Why Nigeria’s Lawyers Are Graduating Into Poverty

 

Nigeria’s young lawyers are discovering a frightening truth: passing the Bar may bring a wig, certificate, and title—but absolutely no guarantee of a livelihood. Simply put, Nigeria’s legal profession is losing its shine: thousands enter with dreams of prestige, only to meet unemployment, poor pay, exploitation, and ethical decay.

I feel sad saying this because there was a time when the word “lawyer” carried weight in Nigeria. A lawyer walked into a room and people adjusted themselves. Parents introduced their children with pride. “My son is a lawyer.” “My daughter is going to Law School.” The wig meant learning. The gown meant dignity. The profession promised prestige, financial security and influence.

That was the advertisement.

Now let us discuss the product.

Today, when somebody tells me that law is still a “noble profession” in Nigeria, I sometimes wonder whether nobility has changed its definition. Perhaps nobility now means wearing a hot horsehair wig under the Nigerian sun while calculating whether your transport fare to court will swallow the appearance fee.

Welcome to the Bar.

Drinks are not included.

The uncomfortable truth exploded into public discussion again when Nigerian social media activist Martins Vincent Otse, better known as VeryDarkMan, attended the Nigerian Bar Association’s 66th Annual General Conference in Port Harcourt. Some lawyers questioned why he should have been invited. VeryDarkMan returned fire. He said law had become one of Nigeria’s poorest professions and asked some wickedly simple questions: How many lawyers have jobs? How many actually practise? How many regularly go to court?

Forget his theatrics for a moment. Forget whether you like him. Forget the social-media noise.

Look at the wound, not the finger pointing at it.

Nigeria keeps producing lawyers by the thousands. In 2022 alone, the Body of Benchers admitted 1,504 new entrants in July and another 4,711 in December, making 6,215 new lawyers in those two ceremonies. In March 2024, another 4,412 successful candidates from the November 2023 Bar Final Examination were scheduled for Call to Bar, alongside 14 candidates from previous examinations.

That is not a trickle.

That is a conveyor belt.

Every year, another army marches out wearing black and white, certificates in hand, parents taking photographs, everybody smiling as though prosperity has just signed an affidavit.

Then Monday morning arrives. Reality removes its sunglasses. Some graduates find proper legal employment. Some build successful practices. Some enter government, banking, corporate compliance, academia, consulting and politics. Let me make that clear because exaggeration is unnecessary when reality already has sharp teeth.

But others discover that being called to the Bar does not mean anybody is calling them for a job.

So the young lawyer improvises.

Today, he is Barrister Chukwuemeka.

Tomorrow, he is selling bedsheets on Instagram.

Barrister Amina starts a catering business.

Barrister Tunde becomes a Bolt or Uber driver.

Barrister Ngozi sells wigs, perfumes and handbags online.

Barrister Emeka becomes a real-estate agent, chasing tenants and commissions around Lagos.

Another starts importing shoes.

Another becomes a Point of Sale (POS) operator.

There is nothing shameful about honest work. Let me say that loudly. A person selling bedsheets honestly has more dignity than a lawyer stealing a client’s money. A driver earning an honest living is worth more than a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) buying justice through the back door.

The scandal is not the bedsheet.

The scandal is spending years studying law, surviving university, paying for professional training, passing Bar examinations, being ceremonially welcomed into a supposedly elite profession—and discovering that the economy has no meaningful chair waiting for you.

The irony becomes darker when we examine what the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) itself has been doing. In 2023, Nigeria introduced the Legal Practitioners’ Remuneration Order, replacing a remuneration framework dating back to 1991. The Order established minimum professional fees and prohibited lawyers from charging below prescribed rates for covered services.

Why would a famously “noble” profession need an emergency campaign to stop its own members from practically giving professional services away?

Because prestige does not pay NEPA, the National Electric Power Authority, which  was the Nigerian government agency responsible for generating and supplying electricity before it was replaced by the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) in 2005.

The NBA Remuneration Committee has repeatedly warned lawyers against undercharging. In 2025, it stressed that violating the minimum-fee rules could amount to professional misconduct. By 2026, the NBA Young Lawyers Forum was still demanding standardized remuneration, structured employment, humane working conditions and a mandatory living wage if a pupilage system were introduced. The forum specifically warned that pupilage must not become another machine for exploiting young lawyers.

Read that again.

“Humane working conditions.”

“Living wage.”

We are discussing lawyers, not undocumented workers hiding inside a factory.

And yet I am supposed to stand up, straighten my tie and chant, “Law is a noble profession.”

Noble?

Please.

Even the 2023 Remuneration Order has struggled against the economic realities it was created to cure. A 2026 scholarly analysis of its implementation reported severe enforcement problems and estimated non-compliance at more than 95% nationwide. The researchers identified weak monitoring, client resistance and enforcement failures, with young lawyers particularly exposed.

There lies the Nigerian contradiction.

We legislate dignity.

Then reality refuses to obey.

Compare this with the United States—not because America is heaven, because it certainly is not, but because comparison exposes the scale of the employment problem. The American Bar Association (ABA) reported that among graduates of ABA-approved law schools in the Class of 2024, 33,931 graduates, representing 87.1%, obtained full-time, long-term jobs requiring Bar admission or providing a J.D. advantage roughly 10 months after graduation.

Where is Nigeria’s equally transparent national employment report showing what happens to every graduating class of lawyers 10 months after Call to Bar?

Show me the numbers.

Not speeches.

Not conference banners.

Not photographs of dignitaries wearing wigs.

Numbers.

How many are practicing?

How many are unemployed?

How many are earning a sustainable professional income?

How many have abandoned law?

How many are driving taxis, selling property, running online shops, teaching secondary school, selling insurance or operating POS stands?

Until we systematically measure those outcomes, calling the profession “noble” can become less a description and more an incantation.

But unemployment and miserable remuneration are only half of my quarrel with this nobility business.

There is also ethics.

That white wig has seen things. In 2018, Dr. Joseph Nwobike, then a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), was convicted by a Lagos State High Court on counts connected to attempting to pervert the course of justice. The case involved efforts to influence court officials concerning the assignment of cases to preferred judges. He was sentenced to imprisonment and subsequently stripped of his SAN rank. The Court of Appeal upheld key parts of his conviction in 2019.

That was not an unemployed young lawyer selling perfume. That was a man who had reached one of the profession’s highest ranks.

Years earlier, the crisis had become so ugly that prominent human-rights lawyer Femi Falana, SAN, publicly accused the NBA of failing to confront corruption within the judiciary. During the controversy surrounding the 2016 DSS raids on judges, Falana argued that shielding corrupt judicial officers embarrassed honest members of the Bar.

Fast-forward to 2026 and the profession is still wrestling with its mirror. The NBA Anti-Corruption Committee and the Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Committee publicly called for stronger and faster disciplinary action against unethical lawyers, citing delays and inconsistent sanctions as threats to public confidence. Even Attorney-General Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, warned in February 2026 that the prestige attached to the SAN rank must never become immunity from discipline. He warned that ethical breaches among senior lawyers and a culture of silence could destroy public trust.

That statement tells me everything.

You do not warn people against confusing prestige with immunity unless somebody has been behaving as though prestige provides immunity.

Then came an episode so absurd that satire almost became unemployed.

In January 2026, NBA President Mazi Afam Osigwe, SAN, condemned the purported appointment of Abdulrasheed Maina as “Grand Patron of NBA Garki Branch.” Maina had been convicted over the theft of more than ₦2 billion ($1.5 Million) in pension funds. The NBA president said the purported appointment made a mockery of both the legal profession and Nigeria’s fight against corruption and announced disciplinary proceedings against the branch chairman responsible.

I could not invent better satire.

A legal association preaching the rule of law finds itself publicly distancing the profession from an attempt to honor a man convicted over stolen pension money.

And somebody still wants me to polish the word “noble.”

No.

I will call a spade a spade.

Law itself remains noble as an idea. Justice is noble. Defending an innocent person is noble. Protecting constitutional rights is noble. Standing between state power and an abused citizen is noble. Fighting unlawful detention is noble. Helping a widow defend her property is noble. Prosecuting corruption without fear is noble.

But a profession does not inherit nobility forever merely because its textbooks say so.

Nobility must be earned daily.

A profession that produces thousands of graduates without a sufficiently developed market to absorb them has a problem. A profession whose young practitioners must demand a living wage has a problem. A profession forced to create minimum-fee rules because practitioners are undercutting one another into poverty has a problem. A profession whose own leadership repeatedly complains about unethical conduct, weak discipline and threats to public confidence has a problem. The wig cannot hide all that.

And this is where I think VeryDarkMan touched the electric wire.

His delivery was crude. His language was provocative. His claim that law is one of Nigeria’s “poorest professions” requires comprehensive national income and employment data before anyone can responsibly treat it as statistical fact. But underneath the noise sits an argument the legal establishment cannot dismiss by simply shouting, “Noble profession!”

Young Nigerians are asking a colder question now.

“What will I eat?”

Prestige does not answer.

A certificate does not answer.

A photograph from Call to Bar does not answer.

The Nigerian Law School can manufacture new wigs faster than the economy can manufacture good legal jobs, and eventually somebody must admit that the mathematics is becoming uncomfortable.

The profession therefore faces a choice. It can protect the mythology or repair the institution.

I would choose repair.

Because there is nothing noble about poverty dressed in a gown.

There is nothing noble about exploitation hidden behind professional tradition.

There is nothing noble about corruption wearing a wig.

And there is certainly nothing noble about telling a struggling young lawyer to admire the prestige of a profession while he is wondering whether his next court appearance will even cover transportation and lunch.

So when somebody tells me, “Law is a noble profession,” I will not quarrel.

I will simply ask:

“Noble for whom?”

For the established SAN with corporate retainers?

Perhaps.

For the politically connected lawyer moving between boardrooms, election tribunals and government contracts?

Certainly possible.

But for the fresh graduate sending applications from chamber to chamber while selling bedsheets at night?

The slogan sounds different.

Nigeria has enough ceremonies. Enough titles. Enough gowns. Enough self-congratulation. What it needs is a legal profession in which competence can produce a decent living, young lawyers are not exploited, ethical misconduct carries real consequences, and justice cannot be treated like merchandise.

Until then, the wig may remain white.

But nobody should confuse its color with innocence.

 

On a different but equally important note, readers who enjoy thoughtful analysis may also find the titles in my  “Brief Book Series” worth exploring. You can also read them here on Google Play, or in Barnes & Noble bookstore: Brief Book Series.

 

AI Is the New King—and the People Who Know How to Command It Are the New Royal Family

 

AI is creating a new aristocracy—and if you cannot use it, you may soon be serving those who can. In plain terms, AI has seized the throne. Learn to command it now, or spend the next decade working for people who did.

The coronation happened on November 30, 2022.

There was no cathedral. No golden carriage. No crown. No trumpet. No priest shouting, “Long live the King!”

There was just a computer screen.

On that day, OpenAI released ChatGPT to the public as a research preview. It looked almost harmless: a little box waiting for somebody to type something into it. Ask a question. Get an answer. Ask another. Get another. Cute.

I think history will remember it differently. November 30, 2022, was the day the throne changed hands. Since 2022, AI has become the New King. And those who know how to use it have become the new noblemen and members of the royal family.

That sounds dramatic.

Good.

History is dramatic.

The steam engine was dramatic. Electricity was dramatic. The automobile was dramatic. The computer was dramatic. The Internet was dramatic. Every major technology eventually divides society into two camps: people who learn how to use the new machine and people who continue behaving as though the old world still exists.

We have seen this movie before.

When industrial machinery spread during the Industrial Revolution, muscle gradually lost some of its economic power to machines. A worker could swing a hammer harder. The machine did not care. It could swing harder, longer, faster, and without asking for lunch.

Then computers arrived.

Suddenly, knowing how to calculate everything by hand was no longer enough. Knowing how to command the machine became more valuable. The spreadsheet did not destroy arithmetic. It changed who could perform complicated arithmetic quickly.

The Internet pulled the same stunt.

A business with a website could reach customers across continents. A researcher with Internet access could search information that once required hours inside a library. The old gatekeepers began losing their keys.

Now AI has entered the palace. And this fellow is greedy.

It wants writing.

It wants programming.

It wants research.

It wants marketing.

It wants customer service.

It wants data analysis.

It wants images.

It wants video.

It wants accounting.

It wants medicine.

It wants law.

It wants education.

It even wants pieces of management.

“Excuse me, Your Majesty. Is there anything you do not want?”

Silence.

That is the scary part.

OpenAI introduced ChatGPT on November 30, 2022, as a conversational system capable of answering follow-up questions, acknowledging mistakes, challenging incorrect assumptions, and following detailed instructions. What followed was not merely another Silicon Valley product cycle. It was the opening of the palace gates.

The numbers tell the story without perfume.

Stanford University’s 2026 AI Index reports that generative AI reached 53% adoption within just 3 years, faster than either the personal computer or the Internet. It also reports that 88% of surveyed organizations were using AI in 2025 and 70% were using generative AI in at least one business function. Global corporate AI investment more than doubled in 2025, while generative-AI investment grew by more than 200%.

Read those numbers again.

This is not a toy waiting to discover whether it has a market. The market has arrived. McKinsey found the same stampede. In its 2025 global survey of 1,993 participants across 105 countries, 88% said their organizations regularly used AI in at least one business function, up from 78% the previous year. Even more revealing, 62% said their organizations were already experimenting with or scaling AI agents.

So when somebody tells me, “AI is just hype,” I want to pull up a chair.

“Please continue.”

I enjoy comedy.

The real question is no longer whether AI will enter the workplace. The fellow is already sitting at the desk. The real question is who will learn to command it. That is where my royal-family argument begins.

The new aristocracy will not necessarily be the people who own castles, inherit titles, or wear expensive suits. Increasingly, it will include ordinary people who understand how to turn AI into economic leverage.

A person who once needed 5 hours to research, organize, analyze, draft, edit, and format something may increasingly accomplish portions of that work in a fraction of the time. A small business owner can use AI to draft advertisements, analyze customer feedback, prepare marketing ideas, summarize documents, brainstorm products, and automate routine communication. A programmer can use it to help debug code. A professor can use it to develop instructional materials. A financial analyst can use it to explore scenarios and organize research, provided the human verifies the work.

One person walks into the office carrying only his brain.

Another walks in carrying his brain plus an artificial army.

Tell me again that these two workers are competing on equal terms.

They are not.

Research gives this argument teeth. An NBER study by Erik Brynjolfsson, Danielle Li, and Lindsey R. Raymond examined 5,179 customer-support agents. Access to a generative-AI assistant increased productivity by about 14% on average. Among novice and lower-skilled workers, the improvement reached 34%.

That number should make managers sit upright.

AI was not merely helping experts become slightly faster. It was allowing less-experienced workers to absorb patterns associated with better workers.

That is almost medieval in reverse.

For centuries, knowledge was guarded. Masters knew things apprentices did not. Professionals accumulated techniques through years of experience. Institutions controlled access to books, professors, laboratories, databases, and specialists.

AI walks into that arrangement carrying bolt cutters.

“Where is the gate?”

“What gate?”

Exactly.

Another NBER study of 7,137 knowledge workers across 66 firms found that among workers given access to a generative-AI tool, the 80% who used it spent about 2 fewer hours per week on email during the latter half of the 6-month experiment and also reduced work outside regular hours.

Time is money.

But time is something nastier than money.

Money lost can sometimes be earned again. Yesterday cannot.

That is why I call skilled AI users the new noblemen. Their privilege is leverage.

And the labor market is beginning to price that privilege.

PwC’s 2025 Global AI Jobs Barometer found that jobs requiring AI skills carried an average wage premium of 56% in 2024. The premium varied sharply by industry: 123% in wholesale and retail trade, 103% in energy, 95% in information and communication, 65% in manufacturing, 64% in professional services, and 60% in financial services.

There is my crown.

It is sitting inside the paycheck.

Of course, AI will not make everybody rich. Owning Microsoft Excel never made everybody an accountant. Having Google never made everybody a scholar. Owning a camera never made everybody Steven Spielberg.

Access is not mastery.

That distinction matters.

Millions of people can open an AI chatbot and type, “Write something about business.”

Wonderful.

Millions of people can also buy a piano.

The concert hall remains strangely empty.

The valuable skill is learning how to interrogate AI, structure problems, provide context, test assumptions, verify outputs, combine tools, recognize hallucinations, refine prompts, protect confidential information, and convert machine output into useful human decisions.

That is where the crown sits.

The future may therefore contain a cruel irony. AI was supposed to democratize knowledge. It probably will. But democratizing a powerful tool does not guarantee equal outcomes.

Give two people the same hammer.

One builds a house.

The other breaks his thumb.

The IMF estimates that almost 40% of global employment is exposed to AI. In advanced economies, the figure rises to about 60%. Some workers will benefit because AI complements their abilities. Others may face lower labor demand, weaker wages, or outright replacement as machines perform portions of their jobs.

That is the uncomfortable part of the coronation.

Every king collects taxes.

AI's tax may be paid by workers who refuse to adapt.

I am not predicting that humans will become useless. That is Hollywood nonsense. Humans still provide judgment, accountability, trust, relationships, physical action, ethical responsibility, context, taste, leadership, and the ability to recognize when the machine is confidently talking rubbish.

But the competition is changing.

Increasingly, the contest will not be human versus AI.

It will be human versus human-with-AI.

That fight is ugly.

Imagine two equally talented consultants. One refuses AI because he considers using it intellectually impure. The other uses AI to organize research, interrogate datasets, generate competing hypotheses, summarize documents, rehearse objections, and draft alternative presentations before applying his own judgment.

They both have 8 hours.

One effectively brings one  worker to the battlefield.

The other brings a small platoon.

Who do I bet on?

Please.

I was born at night, but not last night.

And the transformation is accelerating. McKinsey reported that 71% of surveyed organizations were regularly using generative AI in at least 1 business function in its 2024 survey data, with especially heavy use in marketing and sales, product and service development, service operations, software engineering, and IT. By 2025, overall organizational AI use had reached 88%.

The palace is getting crowded.

There is another uncomfortable class issue hiding underneath all this.

An NBER study of U.S. adoption found that by late 2024, nearly 40% of Americans ages 18–64 were using generative AI. About 23% of employed respondents had used it for work during the previous week, while 9% were using it every working day. Yet adoption was not evenly distributed. NBER reported workplace adoption of about 40% among workers with bachelor's degrees or higher compared with about 20% among workers without college degrees. Usage reached 49.6% in computer and mathematical occupations and 49% in management occupations.

There it is.

A new digital class system is quietly forming.

Not simply rich versus poor.

Not simply educated versus uneducated.

Increasingly, AI-fluent versus AI-illiterate.

That division may become vicious because AI does not merely give people information. Properly used, it gives them leverage over information.

That is different.

Information tells me what bricks are.

Leverage helps me build the wall.

And this is why I reject the comforting little sentence people love repeating: “AI will never replace humans.”

Perhaps.

But that sentence is incomplete.

AI does not have to replace humanity to wreck somebody's career.

A calculator did not replace mathematicians. It replaced the commercial value of paying somebody merely to perform basic arithmetic slowly.

Word processors did not replace writers. They demolished entire layers of manual typing and document production.

Digital photography did not abolish photographers. It gutted businesses built around film processing.

Google did not eliminate researchers. It made certain forms of information retrieval almost laughably cheap.

Technology rarely announces, “I have come to destroy your profession.”

It whispers something more dangerous:

“I can make part of your profession cheaper.”

Then another part.

Then another.

That is how kingdoms fall.

So, yes, I call AI the New King. Not because I worship machines. Kings should never be worshipped merely because they sit on thrones. I call it King because power has shifted toward it. Capital is flooding toward it. Companies are adopting it. Workers are learning it. Universities are confronting it. Governments are regulating it. Investors are financing it. Employers are paying premiums for its skills. Stanford reports that private investment in generative AI grew more than 200% in 2025, while newly funded AI companies increased 71%.

Money has an excellent nose.

It smells power before speeches do.

But I would add one final warning.

The new nobleman is not the person who merely uses AI.

It is the person who knows what he is doing with it.

Blind dependence on AI is not sophistication. It is intellectual drunkenness. AI can hallucinate facts, misunderstand context, reproduce errors, generate mediocre sludge, and produce confident answers that collapse under inspection. The human who stops thinking because AI can think with him has not joined the royal family.

He has become the court fool.

The crown belongs to the person who combines human judgment with machine speed.

That person asks better questions.

Checks the answers.

Challenges the machine.

Uses multiple sources.

Knows when to accept the output.

Knows when to throw it into the garbage.

And, most importantly, knows how to turn the machine's capabilities into measurable value.

That is the new aristocracy I see emerging.

The old nobleman inherited land.

The industrial nobleman owned factories.

The 20th-century nobleman controlled capital.

The Internet nobleman controlled networks and information.

The AI nobleman commands intelligence on demand.

Welcome to the new kingdom.

The King is already on the throne.

The palace gates are open.

And the brutal question facing every worker, entrepreneur, professor, student, professional, and business owner is no longer whether AI deserves the crown. History has already moved past that argument. The question is much simpler: Do I learn how to command the King—or spend the next decade bowing to the people who did?

 

On a different but equally important note, readers who enjoy thoughtful analysis may also find the titles in my  “Brief Book Series” worth exploring. You can also read them here on Google Play, or in Barnes & Noble bookstore: Brief Book Series.

 

Brown University Has Gone Weird: No GPA, No Clothes, No Problem!

 

Welcome to Brown, where genius meets madness: Students once voted for nuclear-war suicide pills, run naked with donuts, and graduate without GPAs. Yet employers still want them.

I have seen strange universities. I have heard strange college traditions. But Brown University operates in a neighborhood of weirdness where the street signs seem to have been removed on purpose.

This is an Ivy League university, mind you. Founded in 1764. Providence, Rhode Island. Serious professors. Serious research. Serious money. Serious students. Brown’s current admissions numbers are brutal: 47,944 people applied for the Class of 2030, only 2,688 were admitted, producing an acceptance rate of just 5.6%. An astonishing 97% of admitted students whose schools reported rankings were in the top 10% of their graduating classes.

These are not academic tourists. They are some of the brightest young people in America and around the world. Then they arrive at Brown. And Brown says, essentially, “Welcome. Now forget what you thought college was supposed to look like.”

That is where things get weird.

I am not using “weird” as an insult without evidence. Brown has spent decades manufacturing evidence.

Consider 1984.

America and the Soviet Union were staring at each other across a mountain of nuclear weapons. Ronald Reagan was president. The Cold War was hot enough to make people sweat without firing a missile. Nuclear annihilation was not some Hollywood fantasy. Millions genuinely feared that Washington and Moscow could eventually press the wrong buttons and turn civilization into radioactive toast.

Brown students decided to make a statement. Naturally, because this was Brown, an ordinary anti-nuclear rally apparently would not do. Students voted on whether the university health service should stock suicide pills for use after a nuclear attack.

Yes.

Suicide pills.

At an Ivy League university.

Brown University’s own historical archive confirms the episode. During student elections on October 11 and 12, 1984, a referendum called for University Health Service to stock suicide pills that would become available in the event of nuclear war. Only 35% of the student body voted, but the proposal passed 1,044 to 687. Students Jason Salzman and Chris Ferguson promoted the idea as a way of forcing people to confront nuclear war in terms of death and destruction rather than victory and survival.

The university refused to stock the pills.

Thank God somebody was still minding the pharmacy.

I understand the political theater. I understand symbolism. I understand young people trying to shock comfortable adults into thinking about nuclear annihilation.

But I also know weird when I see it.

Imagine the conversation.

“What did students at Harvard do?”

“They protested.”

“What about Yale?”

“They held a forum.”

“What about Brown?”

“They want cyanide.”

Case closed.

Except Brown was apparently just warming up.

Years later came another piece of College Hill folklore: the Naked Donut Run.

The name does not hide the merchandise. Students run naked through campus libraries distributing donuts.

Brown’s student newspaper reports that the tradition probably began in the late 1980s or early 1990s. Participants have run through places such as the Rockefeller Library and Sciences Library, removing their clothes and handing donuts to students preparing for exams. A 2022 account reported an order involving more than 1,000 donut holes.

I have questions.

Many questions.

But the biggest is simple: Who looked at final-exam stress and concluded that what the library desperately needed was naked people carrying pastries?

At most universities, somebody brings coffee.

At Brown, apparently, somebody brings buns while showing theirs.

You cannot make this stuff up.

Brown students and organizers have defended the tradition in terms of spontaneity, freedom and body positivity. Fair enough. Adults have the right to make unconventional choices within reasonable rules. I am not calling for the donut police.

I am simply saying that if naked students suddenly sprint through a library carrying Dunkin’ while you are studying organic chemistry, the English language has already supplied us with a perfectly good adjective.

Weird.

Then we arrive at Sex Power God.

Even the name sounds as if three philosophy majors and a bottle of tequila held a committee meeting.

Sex Power God was an annual Queer Alliance dance that became notorious well beyond Brown. In 2005, a Fox News producer entered the event and secretly recorded students, creating a national controversy. Brown students later criticized the filming as invasive and unethical. That criticism deserves to be taken seriously. People attending a closed event should not automatically expect themselves to become television entertainment simply because a journalist manages to get through the door.

But the event itself was hardly Sunday school.

Brown’s own student newspaper reported that 24 students required medical attention at the 2005 Sex Power God event. The following year, 14 students required medical attention. Organizers subsequently emphasized creating a “sober, sane, safe and consensual” environment.

Again, Brown is Brown.

The institution seems to possess an extraordinary ability to combine elite intellectual seriousness with behavior that sounds like material rejected from a college comedy because the screenwriter thought audiences would find it unrealistic.

And yet here is where my argument becomes uncomfortable.

Because underneath Brown’s carnival of eccentricity sits an educational idea that I cannot dismiss nearly as easily.

The Open Curriculum.

Brown formally created the foundation for what became its Open Curriculum after faculty approved major curricular reforms in 1969. More than 50 years later, the philosophy remains strikingly different from the traditional American university model.

Brown students do not face a traditional university-wide core curriculum. They are expected to complete at least 30 courses, complete at least one concentration, demonstrate writing competence and satisfy residency requirements. Beyond that framework, students have enormous freedom to construct their education. Brown offers nearly 80 concentrations, and students may even design independent concentrations.

Then comes the part that makes the professor in me twitch.

Students can choose satisfactory/no-credit grading for courses unless an instructor has designated otherwise. Brown does not calculate student GPAs.

No GPA?

At Brown?

The university that admits roughly 6 students out of every 100 applicants?

My first instinct is simple.

Come on.

The world does not operate on satisfactory/no credit.

Employers evaluate you. Customers evaluate you. Editors reject manuscripts. Banks reject loan applications. Voters throw politicians out. Universities deny tenure. Businesses fail. Athletes get cut. Professors receive student evaluations. Writers discover that readers have the brutal freedom not to buy their books.

Life keeps score.

Sometimes unfairly.

Sometimes viciously.

But it keeps score.

So I understand why Michigan’s coming experiment bothers me. Beginning tentatively in fall 2027, the University of Michigan’s College of Literature, Science, and the Arts plans to cover traditional grades for first-semester freshmen, showing pass/no-credit results on external transcripts while students still receive grades and feedback internally. The idea is to reduce academic pressure and encourage students to take intellectual risks.

I call that coddling.

At least initially.

Because if you are old enough to leave home, choose a university, borrow serious money, select a major and prepare for adulthood, perhaps you are old enough to discover that a C is a C.

But then Brown ruins my argument.

That weird place forces me to think.

Brown’s students have already competed ferociously just to enter the gate. For the Class of 2030, the middle 50% SAT range among admitted students who submitted scores was 1470–1550. The middle 50% ACT range was 34–36.

These kids know competition.

They have been marinating in it.

Many have spent high school collecting AP courses, extracurricular activities, leadership positions, volunteer hours, test scores and awards like soldiers collecting ammunition.

Perhaps Brown is asking an uncomfortable question: Once you have assembled some of the strongest students in the world, must you keep whipping them with the GPA stick every waking minute?

That question bothers me because I can apply it to myself.

I loved my education at Nnamdi Azikiwe University in Awka (Nigeria), the University of Phoenix and Walden University. I studied Applied Statistics and Demography and later Finance. I knew what I wanted. I wanted the degrees. I wanted the credentials. I wanted to become a college professor.

So I pursued the target.

Bang.

Grade.

Bang.

Degree.

Bang.

Next qualification.

There is nothing wrong with that. Discipline matters. Standards matter. Grades matter.

But something else matters too.

Curiosity.

Perhaps I could have spent more time wandering intellectually. Perhaps I could have sat longer with people studying subjects completely outside my lane. Perhaps I could have taken more courses simply because the professor fascinated me. Perhaps I could have treated education occasionally as exploration rather than transportation.

That is Brown’s strongest defense.

The university is weird because it trusts exceptionally accomplished students with an unusual amount of freedom.

Sometimes that freedom produces intellectual exploration.

Sometimes it produces a Naked Donut Run.

Freedom is funny that way.

MIT offers another inconvenient piece of evidence. Its first-year students currently receive Pass or No Record grades during the fall and January Independent Activities Period. Professors still submit underlying letter grades for advising purposes. Standard A–F grading does not fully begin until sophomore year. MIT explicitly says the policy is designed to help students adjust to increased workloads and differences in academic preparation and teaching.

So Brown is not alone.

MIT is weird too.

Michigan wants to join the club.

Maybe elite American education is slowly developing a strange philosophy: We spent 12 years forcing brilliant children to compete for every decimal point, trophy, test score and résumé line. Perhaps when they finally arrive, we can occasionally allow them to learn something simply because they want to know it.

I still have reservations.

Grades provide information. Competition can build resilience. Failure teaches lessons that participation trophies cannot. Universities should be extremely careful about confusing emotional comfort with education. The purpose of college cannot become protecting adults from discovering that somebody performed better than they did.

But Brown’s academic weirdness is harder to ridicule than its naked pastries.

The results certainly do not look like academic collapse. Brown reports that 95% of its 2023 graduates were employed or attending graduate or professional school within 9 months of graduation. It also reports that 83% of its 2024 graduates who applied to law school were admitted and 81% of those applying to medical school were admitted.

Apparently, civilization survived the missing GPA.

That leaves me in an uncomfortable position.

I still think Brown University is weird.

Spectacularly weird.

Historically documented weird.

A university where students once voted for post-nuclear-war suicide pills, where naked runners have distributed donuts in libraries, where Sex Power God became campus folklore, where students can choose satisfactory/no-credit grading, and where the institution refuses even to calculate GPA has earned the adjective honestly.

But perhaps weirdness is not always stupidity.

Sometimes weird is simply an experiment whose logic is not immediately obvious.

Brown’s strangest lesson may therefore have nothing to do with naked runners, nuclear pills or provocative dances. It may be that highly accomplished students occasionally need permission to stop treating education like an Olympic event.

I still believe the real world grades us every day.

I still believe students need toughness.

I still believe universities can coddle young adults until reality eventually sends them an invoice.

But I also believe education should create curiosity, not merely transcripts.

So I will give Brown this much.

Keep the Open Curriculum.

Keep intellectual exploration.

Keep challenging the assembly-line model of higher education.

But please, Brown, I beg you.

When I am studying in the library, just put the donuts on the table.

 

As a side note for regular readers, I have also written many titles in my Brief Book Series, now available on Google Play Books. You can also read them  here on Google Play, or in Barnes & Noble bookstore: Brief Book Series.