Patrick Obahiagbon, the Chief of Staff to the Edo
State Governor, Adams Oshiomhole, in this interview
with GBENRO ADEOYE, talks about his controversial
way of speaking and why he chooses to speak that
way


What is your educational background
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, stripped 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?[/b[
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.
[b]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, Prof. 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.”
http://www.punchng.com/politics/hotseat/in-the-last-20-years-ive-spent-an-hour-daily-reading-dictionaries-obahiagbon/

This man is not joking, he is a joke! Communication is to share meaning, not confusion.

Na wao