By Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D. Twitter: @farooqkperogi President Muhammadu Buhari’s government has failed to bring about the “change” it...
By Farooq A. Kperogi,
Ph.D.
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Politics of Grammar Column
Twitter:@farooqkperogi
President Muhammadu Buhari’s government has failed to bring
about the “change” it promised Nigerians in 2015, which prompted his party to
change its slogan from “change” to “progress,” but both the president and the
political atmosphere he has inspired has changed the face of Nigerian English
in noticeable ways. Below are expressions that emerged in Nigerian English
because of Buhari.
1. “Body language”:
No one who pays attention to Nigerian politics will fail to notice the incipience—and
misuse— of this expression at around the ascendancy of the Buhari presidency.
Supporters of the president who had no logical explanation for the relatively
stable power in the country in the aftermath of his election attributed it to
his “body language.”
The president’s supporters also said his “body language,”
not deliberate policy changes, would fight corruption and inaugurate a new dawn
in the country. Anyone who only understands Standard English would be mystified
by this. By “body language,” Nigerian English speakers mean aura, that is, the
intangible but nonetheless perceptible quality that a person inspires.
As a communication scholar, I teach body language, which we
call kinesics or kinesis in the scholarly literature. It basically means the
communication of messages, both subtle and overt, through the movement, in part
or in whole, of the body. If I shake my head to show disapproval, I am using
body language. If I spread my five or ten fingers to call someone a bastard, as
we do in Nigeria in moments of inflamed passions, I am using body language. And
so on and so forth. That’s how the expression is understood in international
Standard English.
The notion of “body language” as the deterrent effect that
the fear of a person inspires is uniquely Nigerian, and it started with the
Buhari regime. You can’t read a person’s “body language” if you don’t
physically see the person and observe their bodily motions. Invisible body
language can’t make something happen. I had imagined, perhaps incorrectly, that
people who talk of “Buhari’s body language” know enough to know that no one
would have any clue what they are talking about outside Nigeria. I thought they
weren’t ignorant of the Standard English meaning of the expression; I thought
they were merely intentionally contorting and expanding the expression’s traditional
meaning.
But, apparently, that’s not true. Most people use the
expression out of ignorance of what it really means. For instance, while
receiving members of the Muslim Businessmen and Professionals in his office on
April 20, 2018, according to the Vanguard, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo said, “There is no
corruption in the presidency under the current government. This kind of body
language is what is saving this country a lot of money now. Like what is
happening in JAMB, Customs, FIRS, NPA, FAAN, NIMASA where we have witnessed
improved revenue collection and returns to government for unspent resources.”
From the perspective of Standard English, that’s a senseless
waste of words that doesn’t communicate anything. How can “body language” save
the country a lot of money?
My own sense is that whoever came up with the expression was
consciously imbuing an existing English expression with a new meaning in the service
of a new, unlexicalized reality. But then many people started using the
expression with no consciousness that the meaning associated with it is
intentionally nonstandard; that it is a strictly made-for-Nigeria expression. I
am not, by any means, discouraging the use of the expression in Nigerian
contexts. I actually think the re-semanticization of the expression is evidence
of linguistic creativity.
2. “Technically/technical.”
The Buhari administration deploys the word “technically” or “technical” to
modify and cover up blatant lies. When the president’s promise to defeat Boko
Haram by December 2016 didn’t materialize, the government insisted nevertheless
that it had “technically defeated” the group even when killings continued and
still continue.
On May 3, 2018 when Buhari surreptitiously stopped in London
to see his doctors after his American visit, his media aide called it a
"technical stopover." "They had a technical stopover in London,”
presidential spokesperson Garba Shehu told the Punch. “I am sure if you keep your ears to the ground, you will
hear of his arrival soon.”
In everyday conversations in Nigeria, people now use
“technically” or “technical” to jocularly cover up any obvious lie. Someone who
failed his school certificate exams, for example, said he “technically passed.”
People who lose elections also say they have
“technically won” it.
3. “Fatally wounded.”
Nigerian military authorities popularized this expression when they claimed, in
August 2016, that they had “fatally wounded” Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau.
To fatally wound someone is to cause them to die from the wounds you have
inflicted on them.
Nigerian military authorities insisted that by “fatally
wounded,” they meant severely wounded. But fatal means “bringing death.” A
fatal accident is an accident in which people die. “Fatally” is the adverbial
form of “fatal,” and it means “resulting in death.” In fact, the usage example
given for “fatally wounded” in the 2014 edition of the Collins English
Dictionary is, “fatally wounded in battle.” Fatality also means human death. So
when I say there has been a decrease in vehicular fatalities, I am saying fewer
people now die in road accidents than in the immediate past.
4. “Hate Speech”:
This is now an all-purpose term for any strong criticism of the incompetence of
the Buhari government. It is now used in a mocking and jocular way on Nigerian social
media to call attention to devastatingly vigorous criticism of the government.
The Standard English definition of hate speech has no
relation with how the Buhari administration wants it to be understood.
Cambridge Dictionary defines hate speech as, “public speech that expresses hate
or encourages violence towards a person or group based on something such as
race, religion, sex, or sexual orientation (= the fact of being gay, etc.)”
5. “Cross the red
line”: This is a Standard English idiom that means to act in a way that
goes beyond the bounds of acceptable behavior. Buhari coopted this expression
in the service of his creeping tyranny. During his national broadcast on August
21, 2017, he said, “In the course of my stay in the United Kingdom, I have been
kept in daily touch with events at home. Nigerians are robust and lively in
discussing their affairs, but I was distressed to notice that some of the
comments, especially in the [sic] social media have crossed our national red
lines [sic] by daring to question our collective existence as a nation. This is
a step too far.”
To cross the national red line has now come to mean to defy
the tyranny of the Buhari regime. The expression has given rise to humorous
derivatives such as “national red line crosser,” which means people who have no
qualms calling out the incompetence and highhandedness of the Buhari regime.
6. “Soft targets”:
This is a distastefully deceitful rhetorical strategy of the Buhari regime to
minimize the horrors of Boko Haram’s atrocities against ordinary people. The
government says Boko Haram now only attacks “soft targets.” This is merely a
euphemism for poor people who, in the estimation of the Buhari regime, are
inconsequential and worthless. To call victims of murderous terrorist brutality
“soft targets” is to dehumanize them even in death. Unfortunately, many people,
particularly from the northeast, have accepted this linguistic dehumanization
of people at the bottom of the social ladder.
7. “Integrity”:
This word has lost its Standard English meaning in Nigeria. Among Buhari
supporters, “integrity” is a mythical and undefinable quality that only Buhari
possesses. But to Buhari critics, it’s a word that inspires derision and that
serves as a cover for fraud, corruption, and indefensible ethical violations.
Buhari is now mockingly called “Mr. Integrity,” particularly when news of the
untoward dealings of the regime he heads comes to light.
8. “The other room”:
In response to his wife’s unusual criticism of his administration during a
well-publicized BBC interview, Buhari said, in Germany, that his wife belonged
to his “kitchen,” his “living room,” “and the other room.” It was a demeaning,
belittling sexualization of his wife before the world.
“The other room” has many meanings in Standard English, but
it generally means a place where alcoholic drinks are sold and served. However,
Buhari infused a new meaning into this phrase. By “the other room,” the
president meant his bedroom. It was one of the president’s lowest moments in
2016, but his unpresidential verbal indiscretion enriched Nigerian English’s
lexical repertoire. “The other room” is
now a handy euphemism for “bedroom” in Nigerian English.
To be concluded next
week
Politics of Grammar Column
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