Hon. Patrick Obahiagbon, the Chief of Staff to Governor Adams
Oshiomhole, in this chat with Punch’s Gbenro Adeoye, talks about his
controversial way of speaking and why he chooses to speak that way.
I am by the grace of the
celestial choir, a legal practitioner, a public administrator, an
international historian and a diplomat. I earned a degree in Law and was
called to the Nigerian Bar as a solicitor and advocate of the Supreme
Court of Nigeria about 25 years ago and I do also have a double-barreled
Master’s degree in Public Administration and in International History
and Diplomacy.
Why do you always speak ‘big grammar’?
I am not really consensus ad idem with those who opine that my idiolect
is advertently obfuscative. No no no, it’s just that I am in my elements
when the colloquy has to do with the pax nigeriana of our dreams and
one necessarily needs to fulminate against the alcibiadian modus vivendi
of our prebendal political class.
How do you talk to your wife, children and even your friends?
I relate with my family and friends very warmly and in an atmosphere of
camaraderie, stri*ped of my confutational habiliment and gladiatorial
homilies. I am a very peaceful, calm, level-headed and celestially
attuned soul personality.
Is this the way you proposed to your wife, speaking high tech grammar?
Of course, the business of the day when I interfaced with my wife on
matters of the heart had to be in plain Caeser’s language and you can
decipher why that had to be so. The matter in view did not permit itself
of sphinxian conundrum.
It’s a long time ago, so I can’t remember the exact words I used. We
had a relationship for ten years before we got married. We’re looking at
close to 20 years ago.
How does your family understand your English?
My family and friends understand me perfectly just the same way you
understand me now though, I must admit that it depends on the issues on
the piazza.
Is this the way you were speaking in your school days?
I’m sure if you confer with my school mates they will tell you that I no
longer speak what those who just know me now call “grammar.” I could
speak for about twenty minutes when I was in the university and you
won’t understand one word of what I said. I must say I have deteriorated
in my grammatical construct.
How did you start speaking in this manner?
It all happened when my father brought me a teaser which stated that
good orators had ruled the world and you must have to be a feisty orator
if you must rule the world. As an impressionable young man, I
alacritously threw myself into the whirligig of improving my usage of
words by amassing new words on a daily basis.
Did you write exams in school in these big words?
I used such words very-very freely in my exams both at the secondary
school and in my university and little wonder I had the misfortune of my
English results being seized intermittently in my O’ Levels.
WAEC released my results for the other subjects and withheld my
English result. This happened for about three years. Twice, I passed the
University Matriculation Examination but I could not proceed to the
University because of my English results that were not released. At the
end of the day, it was released after the third attempt.
Didn’t you have problems with your teachers?
It no doubt gave me serious issues at the university and that is because
some, if not most of my lecturers, ran away with the erroneous
impression that my attitudinal predilection had a deprecable tinge of
academic braggadocio and intellectual megalomania. But this assumption
was both mendacious and a fallacious ad hominem. I could not but take
solace in that Latin apothegm which states that O Tempora! O Mores.
Was English your best subject?
My best subject in secondary school was government and religion and am
sure that I was drawn to religion because, I now know as a student of
Rosicrucian mysticism, that I was a student of divine light in my last
incarnation. As for government, I just fell in love with the subject due
to my early attraction in life to issues of political-economy.
So what did you score in English language?
English language was of course my hobbyhorse and passion but like I
earlier asseverated, my results were constantly guillotined to my utter
chagrin that I had to lapse into a jeremiad of lachrymoseim for a period
of aeon. I would need to check the result again to be sure of my score.
Do you pray the same way you speak?
God understands all languages, my brother and I pray to God using any
word that pops up. May I posit that the key points in prayers are your
sincerity, purity of heart, walking within the compass and to what
extent are you ready and worthy of receiving the benediction of the
cosmic and the cosmic masters because as we say in mysticism- “when the
students are ready, the masters would appear.”
Take my words my brother that more than seventy per cent of humanity
don’t know how to pray but that is a matter for another day.
By the way, are there other names you call God?
God is variously known as Jehovah, Yaweh, The Great Grand Architect of
the Universe, The Cosmic Host and several other names known alone to
heirophants but which names are so ineffable for me to mention here.
Do you know that many people don’t take you too seriously when you talk because they think you are not communicating?
Why will I be perturbed from ensconcing myself in the palatable arms of
Morpheus because people have deprived themselves of the cultivation of
the regime of the mental magnitude? I read all the farrago of baloneys
and vacuous bunkum from pepper soup objurgators. The spirit of
animadversion remains their fundamental human right. It also remains an
indubitable fact that I get millions and millions of requests daily from
people all over the world requesting for my verbal mentorship which
positive cosmopolitan reactions have assisted my equipoise and righteous
sense of pachydermatous garb. I cannot put my nose to the grindstone
daily and expect to be understood by those luxuriating in a modus
vivendi, verging on pepper souping, goat heading, suyaing, big stouting
and isiewulising. Has a philosophical wag not once pontificated that
things of the spirit are spiritually discerned and that it takes the
deep to call the deep? We will speak more on this matter of critiques
and chichi dodo another day.
You were there when a teacher in your state couldn’t pronounce ‘solemnly’, how did you feel?
I was indeed sad that a teacher in Edo State could not pronounce a
simple word as ‘solemn’. That was certainly one of my low moments in the
service of Edo State but the eulogies must go to Comrade Adams
Oshiomhole who put in place the infrastructure that made it possible to
detect such an egregious ambience and this government would stop at
nothing in cleansing the Augean stables.
Have you ever considered organising English classes in Edo State?
I would have loved to organise English classes, my brother, but you will agree with me that I am sufficiently busy just now.
Why do you pull your trousers up beyond the waist?
Hahahaha….That trousers style is called Yohji Yamamoto. It was my own
audacious statement to remonstrate against the pervasive tendency of
Nigerians especially our youths that took to the practice of putting on
trousers exposing their lower anatomical contours and I will do it over
and over again.
When you speak to Caucasians of English origin, how do they react to you?
My friends that are whites simply marvel and sometimes get maniacally bewildered when we engage, most times to my consternation.
Do you think that you understand English language better than the owners of the language?
I have never had the ambition to know the English language more than the
owners. However, I must mention that they are shocked most times to
find out several words from me they never heard of that existed in the
dictionary. Yet, those words are supposed to be theirs. Na so we see am.
Have you ever met with the Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka? And what’s your opinion of him?
Professor Wole Soyinka is an international personality. It’s either you
have met him personally or by reputation. He is a great man and I enjoy
reading him anytime, any day.
Can you ever be caught speaking what many would consider as normal English?
I speak in plain Ceasers language or what you call the normal language
and let me tell you that I will hold my own even in pidgin
conversation. No just try me at all at all o.
What is your take on the ongoing crisis in the PDP?
The crisis in PDP? All I can say is that I join some people to
dey laugh o and he be like say my laugh go tay well well o.
Are you likely to contest for a political office?
I am still in politics, serving the good and amiable people of Edo
State. Being the Chief of Staff to the comrade governor is in itself an
art of daily political engineering.
Do you look forward to developing your own dictionary?
My own dictionary? I have never really given that a thought, but there
is a young man in one of our universities who travelled all the way to
meet me in Benin. His doctoral thesis is on “Obahiagbonism as a style of
language.”
How many dictionaries do you read a day and how often do you read dictionaries?
I have read and still do read a vaudeville of dictionaries from Websters
to Funk and Wagnalls, from Cambridge to Oxford dictionaries, from
Black’s Law Dictionary to Encarta and from Encyclopedia Britannica to
Foreignisms, etcetera. I developed my corpus of vocabulary by reading
omnivorously. I have also spent nothing less than an hour daily on my
dictionary for over twenty years. So, whereas the dictionary for most
people is a mere occasional reference point, it is for, me a vade-mecum.
It may also interest you to know that there is much to learn from our
daily newspapers.
You seem to mix English with other languages…
On mixing of languages; that comes with reading omnivorously. You cannot
but pick these words here and there if you have an audacious reading
culture.
Is any of your children like you?
My children are still growing but I petition the celestial choir and
cosmic hosts to give them the gift of kissing the hybla bee.
What is your favourite quote?
One of my favorite quotes is from the sapiential mind of the late Ikene
philosopher, Papa Jeremiah Obafemi Awolowo, when he was quoted as saying
that, “the greatest glory is not in never falling but to rise up after a
fall.”
Are you planning to contest in 2015?
I always feel flattered and smile with delight when I hear positive
commentary on my tenure at the National Assembly and the wish of
Nigerians to see me back at the National Assembly. I am humbled but as a
student of mysticism, nothing happens in my life by accident. I am a
robot in the hands of God and from that point of view therefore, 2015
would take care of itself. All my efforts just now my brother is geared
towards complementing the efforts of the comrade governor in the total
transmogrification of Edo State which is enough to chew at the moment.
Let me however use this opportunity of your question to appreciate my
numerous admirers all over the world.
How are you coping with Governor Oshiomole, knowing that two of you have strong personalities?
When two or more personages are united only by the bonds of rendering
service, that in itself becomes an agglutinating fragrance. In any case,
I am very clear that Comrade Oshio Baba is the Governor of Edo State
and I am his privileged Chief of Staff. So we are working together very
harmoniously and in an ambience of conviviality in our unstoppable
desire in taking Edo State to the next level.
