By Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D. Twitter: @farooqkperogi Hundreds of readers wrote to tell me they were disappointed when none of my colu...
By
Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D.
Twitter:
@farooqkperogi
Hundreds of readers wrote to tell me they were
disappointed when none of my columns concerned President Muhamadu Buhari’s May
29 inaugural address. They said they expected to read my
critical examination of the grammar, usage, and rhetoric of the speech.
But I want readers to be aware that the deadline for
turning in my columns is Tuesdays for my “Notes from Atlanta" column in the Daily Trust on Saturday and Thursdays
for this column. Given this fact, I could never have written about Buhari’s
inaugural address in my columns since it was given on Friday.
Having said that, it’s worth noting that whatever anyone
may think of the speech, it will go down in history as one of the most
memorable inaugural speeches by a Nigerian president or head of state. Few
inaugural speeches can rival the attention it has attracted, the frenzied
discussions it has generated, the interpretive contestations it has invited,
and the hope and confusion it has inspired. President Buhari clearly has
excellent, well-informed speech writers.
In what follows, I identify and analyze what, from my
perspective, constitute the rhetorical and grammatical high points of the
speech.
1.
“I belong to everybody and I belong to nobody.”
No expression in a presidential address has simultaneously puzzled and
gladdened Nigerians as this one. On the surface, the expression appears to be mutually
contradictory: you can’t belong to
everybody and belong to nobody concurrently. The overlap in duration of
belonging to everybody and belonging to nobody appears to be a classic
illustration of the Aristotelian law of noncontradiction, which says "One
cannot say of something that it is and that it is not in the same respect and
at the same time."
But the expression is actually an example of a
rhetorical device that some scholars call a veridical paradox, which means a
contradiction that seems absurd on the surface but that is nonetheless true
when looked at deeply. (Veridical means “true” or "real"). In this expression, Buhari
gave powerful words to the sentiments several people who know him have
expressed about him—that he is something of a blank slate on whom people
inscribe whatever they want.
For instance, many people in the Muslim north were
passionate about him because they perceived him as the apotheosis of Islamic
morality; in the non-Muslim north and elsewhere, he was reviled and feared for
the same reason. When pictures of him shaking hands with Edo State governor’s
new wife surfaced on social media, many of his Muslim supporters were
heartbroken, but his erstwhile critics who had labeled him an intolerant,
doctrinaire Muslim were pleasantly discombobulated.
During the campaigns, his critics loosened up a lot
when they saw pictures of his wife and female children whose sartorial choices
defy the stereotype of people who are “oppressed” by a “fanatical Muslim” man.
Which “fanatical” Muslim marries an 18-year-old woman fresh out of secondary
school and allows her to go to London to study cosmetology and then enroll for
a bachelor’s degree and later a master’s degree?
We also learn
from Pastor Tunde Bakare that President Buhari is so
religiously cosmopolitan that he calls “Jesus!” in moments of extreme
excitement. “I also remember when we got back from a campaign and he was tired
and while going to his room, he staggered and said, Jesus Christ of Nazareth
and I went ‘What!’” Bakare said. “I said ‘General, I thought it was a swear
word,’ and he laughed and said ‘Pastor you don’t have the monopoly of Jesus
Christ, you don’t want to hang around General for too long.’”
Buhari’s long and illustrious career in the military
certainly broadened his scope, deepened his tolerance for and acceptance of
Nigeria’s ethnic and religious plurality, yet it hasn’t vitiated the moral
essence of his Hausa-Fulani Muslim identity. That’s why he could leave for
Jummat prayers while the inaugural lunch held in his honor was still ongoing.
Saying “I belong to everybody and I belong to nobody” captures
the truth of Buhari’s notionally multiple yet unified Nigerian identities.
People who are widely traveled and that settle in
different parts of the world for extended periods, but usually not long enough
to plant any roots, often describe themselves as belonging to “everywhere and
nowhere.”
I laugh at
people who claim that Buhari’s speech writers plagiarized the expression from
the lyrics of a song titled “Out
of Nowhere” by Eric Burdon & War where the line
“I belong to everyone, because I belong to no one” appears. The verbiage is
similar, no doubt, but the expression doesn’t exclusively belong to Eric Burdon
& War. It first appeared in English in Bible translations where Paul says
to a servant, in 1 Corinthians 9:19, “Though I am free and belong to no one, I
have made myself a slave to everyone.”
There have been several variations of this biblical
expression over the years. Another popular adaption of the expression can be found
in Lana Del Rey’s song titled “Ride
(Monologue)” where the following line appears: “I
belong to no one - who belonged to everyone.” As I wrote in a September
30, 2012 article, “using fixed expressions from the pool of
disciplinary and cultural linguistic repertoire isn’t plagiarism.”
2.
Grammatical slips in the inaugural address
Although the speech is rhetorically sound, it is
bedeviled by several careless grammatical slips. I identify them below, not to
ridicule the writers of the speech, but to guide people who might, out of
innocence, hold up the speech as the paragon of a well-written, grammatically
correct and complete speech.
A.
“I salute their resolve in waiting long hours in rain and hot sunshine to
register and cast their votes and stay all night if necessary to protect and
ensure their votes count and were counted.”
There are at least two grammatical errors that stand
out like sore thumbs in the excerpt above. “In rain” isn’t idiomatic. The usual
rendering of the expression is “in the rain.” The verb “count” should be
rendered as “counted” since the president was referring to an event that has
already happened, thus it should be, “ensure their votes counted and were
counted.”
B.
“I thank those who tirelessly carried the campaign on the social media.”
Unless you’re referring to a social media platform you
had mentioned previously, the definite article “the” is unnecessary, even
confusing, when it precedes “social media.” The phrase would have been better
as “campaign on social media” since the reference to “social media” is generic,
not specific.
C.
“At the same time, I thank our other countrymen and women who did not vote for
us but contributed to make our democratic culture truly competitive, strong and
definitive.”
It should be “contributed to making…” In British
English, when the preposition “to” comes after verbs like “contribute,”
“dedicate,” etc., the auxiliary verb that follows is always in the progressive
tense, that is, it always has the “ing” form of a verb.
D.
“African brethren.” “
Brethren” is an archaic plural form of
brother. Its modern version is “brothers.” In contemporary usage, brethren
refers only to lay members of certain Christian religious sects. Besides, it’s
sexist and exclusionary to use a male gender marker to refer to a vast multitude
of people who include both men and women.
E.
“Our founding fathers, Mr Herbert Macauley, Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, Chief Obafemi
Awolowo, Alhaji Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto, Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa Balewa,
Malam Aminu Kano, Chief J.S. Tarka, Mr Eyo Ita, Chief Denis Osadeby, Chief
Ladoke Akintola and their colleagues worked to establish certain standards of
governance.”
By the rules and logic of Standard English grammar,
the insertion of a comma after “founding fathers” gives the impression that Mr
Herbert Macaulay and the rest aren’t our founding fathers; that our founding
fathers, who are nameless, along with Macaulay and co., “worked to establish
certain standards of governance.” Removing the first comma helps “founding
father” to function as an attributive phrase that modifies the names that
follow.
F.
“Not least the operations of the Local Government Joint Account.”
That
is a sentence fragment unworthy of being in a presidential address. A sentence fragment
is a group of words that lacks a subject, a main verb, and that does not
express a complete thought. This excerpt fits the bill.
G.
“No single cause can be identified to explain Nigerian’s poor economic
performance over the years than the power situation.”
“Than” always co-occurs with the comparative forms of
adjectives (such as taller, better, more beautiful) or “rather.” So the
sentence should correctly be, “No single cause can be identified to explain
Nigeria’s poor economic performance over the years MORE than the power situation.” Even at that, it is awkward
phraseology.
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