Opinion: Why Honourable Patrick Obahiagbon should be stoned by all of us

by Nwilo Bura-Bari Vincent

Obahiagbon

When you are an elected officer, representing a people, as a politician, every word you speak in the English Language should be able to travel into the understanding of the populace so they can assess whether you are speaking for them or against them.

Language should be understood. When you are an elected officer, representing a people, as a politician, every word you speak in the English Language should be able to travel into the understanding of the populace so they can assess whether you are speaking for them or against them. But in Nigeria this is utter gibberish. It is legitimate to be incomprehensible.

I have no doubt that the so-called Honourable Patrick Obahiagbon is a fool who plays around jargon with platitudes too confusing, even to himself to comprehend. When language fails to be understood as expressed in the media or by the politicians who hold our trust then we are in trouble.

I love words. I love simple and easy going words. Maybe I should blame my poor parents who never had enough resources to send me to the high-sounding names – those schools that enable you speak things that could be disastrous to human ears. I attended a community school. I had stayed in the village more than anyone of my age because my father could not afford to leave us in the hands of strangers as tender as my younger brother and I were. He was a carpenter. He cared little about language in course of his job but it gave him pleasure when what we spoke sounded pleasant and simple.

When we returned to the city the only school that could be trusted because of distance and fees was a community school around the place where we lived. The teachers barely spoke correctly. The language we heard there was same with what we heard on our streets, by the same people we had escaped from, the hoodlums.

Language is life to those who treasure it. And it sickens to know that the custodians of the rules of grammar are so inadequate and incompetent in our schools. One day my younger brother who is about five years old brought home an invitation letter from his school to my parents. It was supposed to be a PTA meeting. No sentence in that letter was correct. Even popular words were mixed up. The pathetic side is that it took them three years to spell his name: Fortune, correctly.

It is difficult to correct an old man. And when it is easier to deceive the younger ones we should be careful who speaks to our children and who they listen to. A bad grammar is painful to the ears, when I listen to a speaker of such tears voluntarily run down my cheek. One dies quickly if sentenced to solitary with series of bad language blasting through the speakers. A bad language hunts your soul.

Mr. Patrick is a murderer. He has killed many through those same words he claims to express for the people. The most amazing truth is that the people his statements are directed at do not understand a hint of what he is expressing. What sort of a speaker would he be, then? He makes us laugh and he makes us sad, and so he makes us stupid. I knock off the television set whenever he appeared; speaking those retarded language of his.

Speaking and writing, reading and listening – conversation, generally should bring pleasure. The honourable Patrick has gone a step further to open a Twitter account where he dishes out his missiles to eliminate more Nigerians. This is genocide and he should be charged for that. The honourable Patrick, in the words of a popular comedian, needs some Jesus.

There is almost no difference between a teenager who takes a loaded riffle to a theatre to shoot at innocent people and a politician who is paid through tax payers’ money to murder same tax payers with bad, gigantic language which serves no purpose but is dismally flat and uncomfortable. This kind of thing, to me, is rubbish.

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Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.

Comments (11)

  1. You call this grammar? What do you speak and comprehend? Gibberish????? People who adore such stupidity are individual who are all incompetent to decipher dialect from language!!!

  2. Mr writer! How do u define a murderer ? Do u fink a man who decapitates a live by way of gun or dangerous ammunitions is the only way to go about defining a murderer ? No! A man who publicly uses vulgarious words on someone else’s personality is a worse murderer. Only if u could be civic in addressing people irrespective of ur VEX about their style. Question the institution that certified u as a graduate, nd am beginning to know that people like you lack wisdom(even though u may be knowledgeable) . Have the followers and supporters of pobahiagbon complaint about him ? What makes u fink u aint the biggest of all fools in the world ? How do u xplain the proviabial parlance “if a childs hands are clean, he dines wif the elders”? Only children who talks wisely at elders fora where pointed; not nepios like u ! Even if 4 god’s sake u must condemn pobahiagbon(or any of our economic philistines) u most be civil and wise about it. Ur write up has only exposed ur attitudes to ur parents at home to the public. How u call ur father a full if he talks OP, den u mother a murderer if she fails to add salt to ur soup. U don’t have to be callous to chastize an elder even if he messes up. U most be wise in dealing with dem diplomatically. There are intelligent ways of insulting an elder wivout he reading insultive meaning to it.

    Intelligence and good character is the ultimate goal of sound education…………..Rev Dr Martin luthar king

    WISE UP !!!

  3. The writer of this piece is a coward,thesame patrick obhahiagbon speaks, house of reps members are jumping and applauding him when ever he stands up 2 speak.I Watch one of his section in the house of reps when he was speaking men nd women where all shouting jumping in ecstasy because the man is saying the truth,i recorded his speech searcherd through the dictionary all the words he spoke were absolutely correct,so mr hater go hug a transformer!

  4. I understand how Painful You feel about the Use of words by a Politician who failed to understand that the frame of reference of him and his listeners are widely separated. However, I am surprised U have also failed to understand that Communication is not about simplicity, it is not about filling semantic gaps with too much data(information). What communication entails that such puzzled audience like you should be challenged to negotiate for meaning. I see no obfuscation in the utterances of Hon.Patrick unless you have failed to listen carefully and make meaning out of what he has said.

  5. I agree with this writer, even though I don’t support the strong words used in describing the Honourable. The purpose of language is communication. What is the essence of talking when people can’t make anything out of what you’re saying. While other representatives are making their points understood, the man would be busy making comic display of his linguistic skills. Please note that most of the words he uses are jargons,colloquial or archaic English words.

  6. I like te way thea man blows grammer infact i even need his twitter handle to follow him

  7. When am depressed Hon. Patrick is just d right medicine for me even if he doesn’t make any sense. Abeg leave for me ooh. lol

  8. While I feel bad and also the pain of this writer, I feel it is eccentric and Inappropriate to call Mr patrick “a fool and murderer”. Because one does not like a particular food doesn’t make the food poisonous or bad. If you don’t like him, simply “knock off” your TV set. Its so easy to condenm Mr patrick but no one talks about Mrs Jonathan who can’t even make a correct statement. A good piece but too strong worded. I should be able to express my intellectual language knowledge in a democratic setting that supports freedom of speech. Our pain should be towards the low standard of education in our beloved country.

  9. Good piece… Am so happy that at last someone share my view of this man. I always read and listen with displeasure each time its coming from Mr. Patrick. He assaults the language, rapes it and murders it. 90 percent of his word are jargon.. His words disagree with each other.. And that makes his appear foolish and maladjusted.

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