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| Hon Patrick Obahiagbon |
The
first few words read: ‘As we celebrate our flag and shambolic
autarky at 52…’ and that’s how I knew I was in for another laugh;
please don’t ask me the content of what he is trying to say because I don’t
know and won’t make serious attempts to know. English words I have never heard
and may never remember.
Hon
Patrick Obahiagbon, a graduate of St. John Bosco Grammar School, Obiaja, Edo
State (1983), a law Graduate of University of Benin, Edo State (1987) and a
former member of the House of representatives from Edo State representing Oredo
Federal Constituency has become an iconic “Grammar Blaster” and is well sought
after by the media because of the great audience he attracts
whenever he speaks
with his rather incomprehensible diction.
It
is not different yesterday as he didn’t spare the media rave when he spoke
again on Celebration of Nigeria’s 52nd Independence leaving behind
ripples of his words on virtually all the popular Social Media Networks preceded
by comments like “Hon. Obahiagbon at it again, get your dictionary handy.” For
me, I couldn’t control the laughter even as I wait for the link to his words to
load; and eventually it did and it reads:
“As
we celebrate our flag and shambolic autarky at 52, we must realize that Nigeria
is still more of a geographic contrivance as has been rightly posited by Chief
Obafemi Awolowo. Not with our centrifugal excrescences preponderating over our
centripetal proclivities. It’s a matter for mental pabulum that we are daily
drifting into our ethnic cocoons. We still remain one country with disparate
ethnic agendas and I can say it for the umpteenth time again that we must sit
down in a sovereign national colloquy to discuss the basis for our nationhood.
Anything short of this is just vacuous scahiamachy.”
That was not his first and definitely won’t be
his last. On other occasion during a crisis in the Nigerian Aviation Industry,
Obahiagbon didn’t mind if our ribs are made of plastics or our jaws of glasses.
He commented thus:
“We
must halt this ludicrously lugubrious kakistocracy. We must demur against
demuren (no onomatopoeic extrapolation intended). The quotidian stentorian
atribilous ululation is abyssopelagic. The country is on a precipice of
pocalyptic crepscule.”
He,
sometimes in 2010 however claimed he has since cut down on his choice of
complex words when interviewed on his choice of uncanny knack for jaw breaking
English words. Excertpts:
“Sincerely
speaking, I want to tender an unreserved apologia to my colleagues and all
those who feel that my language is obscurantist. The truth is that I do not set
out deliberately to mystify my audience, to deposit my audience in a
portmanteau of indecipherability or in portmanteau of conundrum. No, no, no,
no! Far from it.
The cosmic force would not allow me to do that. But, you see if you ask homo sapients who have interfaced with me for close to twenty years now, they would tell you that I no longer speak high sounding language. I have reduced it radically.
If you have the opportunity to listen to my speeches or debates ten, fifteen years ago, then it would have been a different kettle of fish all together. So, I am convinced that I’ve tried, I am trying and I will continue to try to ensure that my language, or my idiolect is as limpid and as diaphanous as possible.
But, let me say that I am an omnivorous reader and I put my nose on the grinding stone to read for more than 7 hours a day when most innocent men are sleeping, and night marauders are doing their business. I am on my table, in my Library for 7 hours. And that has been on for over twenty years. And like I always tell people, the dictionary for me is not a reference point; the dictionary is a vade mecum, a constant companion.
I spend on the average not less than an hour a day referencing the dictionary for the past twenty to twenty-five years. So don’t be maniacally bewildered if I speak most times, from what I draw while reading. But, really, the intention is not to deliberately befuddle or obfuscate my presentations on the floor.”
The cosmic force would not allow me to do that. But, you see if you ask homo sapients who have interfaced with me for close to twenty years now, they would tell you that I no longer speak high sounding language. I have reduced it radically.
If you have the opportunity to listen to my speeches or debates ten, fifteen years ago, then it would have been a different kettle of fish all together. So, I am convinced that I’ve tried, I am trying and I will continue to try to ensure that my language, or my idiolect is as limpid and as diaphanous as possible.
But, let me say that I am an omnivorous reader and I put my nose on the grinding stone to read for more than 7 hours a day when most innocent men are sleeping, and night marauders are doing their business. I am on my table, in my Library for 7 hours. And that has been on for over twenty years. And like I always tell people, the dictionary for me is not a reference point; the dictionary is a vade mecum, a constant companion.
I spend on the average not less than an hour a day referencing the dictionary for the past twenty to twenty-five years. So don’t be maniacally bewildered if I speak most times, from what I draw while reading. But, really, the intention is not to deliberately befuddle or obfuscate my presentations on the floor.”
Whatever,
I rather not bother myself with the message he is trying to pass across but
enjoy the laughter that accompanies it.
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