my attention was drawn to President Jonathan’s
goodwill message to Nigerians on Christmas. Having
read many speeches from the President of Nigeria, I am
always certain that there would be grammatical and
other kinds of errors in his speeches. Indeed, I have
stopped bothering about it. But when I read his present
speech, I had to comment, initially for the benefit of my
friends.
The responses to my comment promoted me to further
analyze that speech. (Before you go further, remember
that anybody can make a mistake. It is a matter of
degree; but the office of the President of Nigeria should
not make the same type of mistake that an individual like
me could make). The funny thing is that I am actually
familiar with how the presidency works or should work.
There are layers of personnel to ensure that anything
coming from the President, directly in his name, reflects
the best the country is capable of. That is supposed to
be the general state of affair and everybody in the
presidency understands and works towards that. The
office of the President would therefore have the best
secretaries and other support staff working in a structure
where they are positioned to detect errors and correct
them before the matter gets out.
For instance, it is a serious problem to submit a
document to the President for his signature, where such
a document has an error in it. We refer to documents
signed by the President as documents that are
watertight and perfect. They leave no room for typos or
other problems. That is why a document bearing directly
the name of the President would go through several
checks and reviews before publication.
Note that this was not a speech delivered on behalf of
the President by an aide. It is not a thing by a press rep.
It is not a thing by his advisers. It is directly in the name
of the President. So, efforts should have been expended
to ensure that it met the highest standards. If they were
not sure of that standard or they lack the time and
resources to ensure the highest standards, they could
have had the speech given on behalf of the President by
some other official.
What I think happened was that they allowed a low
grade, low talent (but highly paid) connected political
player’s relative to man the President’s Facebook
account. They forgot that even though it was Facebook,
that was the President directly communicating with the
world.
Some people naively think that this is just about
grammatical error. They are satisfied that he even
bothered to greet them on Christmas. But, rather, this
matter reflects failure at several levels. It is failure to
understand the use and significance of the social media
in modern governance. It is failure to understand the
people and the audience the President is trying to reach.
It is a failure to select the right officials based on
competence rather than political patronage. It is simply a
huge failure to lead the country with any sense of
modernity.
A few days ago, President Putin of Russia had a meet-
the-press session attended by 3,000 press people. Putin
communicated with the world with the latest and best
technology that exists. He communicated like a pro. But
here, the President of the most populous black nation in
the world where 65% of the population comprises of
people under age 30 could not even send a simple
message on Facebook without so many basic errors.
Now, I used this simple issue to test Nigerians. I wanted
to see how many of the youth would understand what is
in issue here. Many do not understand that if you don’t
speak any language of your choice in the correct
grammatical format, that would cause you to say the
opposite of what you meant to say. Now, may we
examine in some specific details the statement by the
President of Nigeria, as follows: (I placed my comments
as Notes after the first four paragraphs).

SECOND PARAGRAPH : Christmas is a time of joyous
family gatherings and as President, I see every Nigerian
as a member of my family and I urge us all to retain the
unique sense of brotherly love that this season evokes
beyond the Yuletide period



Note: (1) This paragraph is mostly meaningless. The
President’s attempt to define Christmas only as “a time
for joyous family gatherings” does not reflect an
intelligible articulation of the purpose of Christmas. In
fact, religious scholars do not believe that the central
connotation of Christmas involves family gatherings, as
there is no such religious obligation for families to
gather. Of course, he could have avoided this ambiguity
by indicating that this is his own understanding of the
meaning of Christmas. (2) Also the use of the definite
article “a” before “time” does not reflect the best
practice. (3) Similarly, there ought to be the definite
article “the” before the word “President” in that
paragraph. (4) The most disturbing error in the second
paragraph of the speech has to do with the last seven
words in that paragraph, “this season evokes beyond
the Yuletide period”. The problems here are: (a) What is
the “season” mentioned here? That is Christmas season.
(b) What is the “Yuletide period” mentioned here? That is
Christmas period. So, that statement really says
something like this: “This Christmas season evokes
beyond the Christmas period”. You can see immediately
the dumbness of such statement. It is a lazy statement
by a lazy writer. And, by the way, what is the meaning of
the word “Yuletide”? It is defined by Wikipedia as: “Yule
or Yuletide (“Yule time”) is a Pagan religious festival
observed by the historical Germanic peoples, later being
absorbed into and equated with the Christian festival of
Christmas.” The English Dictionary defined it as “Archaic
way of saying “Christmas””. Now why would this writer
use such term, really?

THIRD PARAGRAPH: While we will surely mark this
holiday in our different ways and according to our
established traditions, it is my desire that we all
celebrate Christmas with some minimum comforts and
my team and I have long prepared for this by working to
improve our infrastructure especially those that most
serve us during this season.




Note: This paragraph, like all other paragraphs in the
speech, contains at least four errors. I don’t need to
mention them here, except to point out the most bizarre
of the errors. That has to do with the phrase: “it is my
desire that we all celebrate Christmas with some
minimum comfort...” What does the President mean to
say here? Is he urging Nigerians to show restraint in
their consumption during the period, which might make
sense, or does he really mean that Nigerians should be
minimally comfortable during the period? (If Nigerians
don’t have electricity during the period, yes, that would
be “minimum comfort” for them). It is totally bizarre for
such ambiguity and confusion to emanate from a simple
statement of goodwill from the President of Nigeria. I
will not bother to list the errors in the remaining
paragraphs. Those are even too disturbing for anyone to
bother to point them out. It is easier to point out the
correct statements here than to point out the errors
because only about five sentences in the entire speech
are correct grammatically and otherwise. And most of
the factual assertions in the speech are false and most
statements of opinion in it are illogical.

jingh:
y attention was drawn to President Jonathan’s
goodwill message to Nigerians on Christmas. Having
read many speeches from the President of Nigeria, I am
always certain that there would be grammatical and
other kinds of errors in his speeches. Indeed, I have
stopped bothering about it. But when I read his present
speech, I had to comment, initially for the benefit of my
friends.
The responses to my comment promoted me to further
analyze that speech. (Before you go further, remember
that anybody can make a mistake. It is a matter of
degree; but the office of the President of Nigeria should
not make the same type of mistake that an individual like
me could make). The funny thing is that I am actually
familiar with how the presidency works or should work.
There are layers of personnel to ensure that anything
coming from the President, directly in his name, reflects
the best the country is capable of. That is supposed to
be the general state of affair and everybody in the
presidency understands and works towards that. The
office of the President would therefore have the best
secretaries and other support staff working in a structure
where they are positioned to detect errors and correct
them before the matter gets out.
For instance, it is a serious problem to submit a
document to the President for his signature, where such
a document has an error in it. We refer to documents
signed by the President as documents that are
watertight and perfect. They leave no room for typos or
other problems. That is why a document bearing directly
the name of the President would go through several
checks and reviews before publication.
Note that this was not a speech delivered on behalf of
the President by an aide. It is not a thing by a press rep.
It is not a thing by his advisers. It is directly in the name
of the President. So, efforts should have been expended
to ensure that it met the highest standards. If they were
not sure of that standard or they lack the time and
resources to ensure the highest standards, they could
have had the speech given on behalf of the President by
some other official.
What I think happened was that they allowed a low
grade, low talent (but highly paid) connected political
player’s relative to man the President’s Facebook
account. They forgot that even though it was Facebook,
that was the President directly communicating with the
world.
Some people naively think that this is just about
grammatical error. They are satisfied that he even
bothered to greet them on Christmas. But, rather, this
matter reflects failure at several levels. It is failure to
understand the use and significance of the social media
in modern governance. It is failure to understand the
people and the audience the President is trying to reach.
It is a failure to select the right officials based on
competence rather than political patronage. It is simply a
huge failure to lead the country with any sense of
modernity.
A few days ago, President Putin of Russia had a meet-
the-press session attended by 3,000 press people. Putin
communicated with the world with the latest and best
technology that exists. He communicated like a pro. But
here, the President of the most populous black nation in
the world where 65% of the population comprises of
people under age 30 could not even send a simple
message on Facebook without so many basic errors.
Now, I used this simple issue to test Nigerians. I wanted
to see how many of the youth would understand what is
in issue here. Many do not understand that if you don’t
speak any language of your choice in the correct
grammatical format, that would cause you to say the
opposite of what you meant to say. Now, may we
examine in some specific details the statement by the
President of Nigeria, as follows: (I placed my comments
as Notes after the first four paragraphs).

Where is the source Link? because its obvious this writeup was copied from somewhere

FIFTH PARAGRAPH: With the Enugu airport now handling
international flights, more of our people can fly directly
to their localities resulting in reduced pressure on our
roads.

bf

Wittylens:






Where is the source Link? because its obvious this writeup was copied from somewhere

this your sauce,source and saws

http://www.newsexpressngr.com/news/detail.php?news=3893

There is a little difference btw GEJ andPEJ and OMISORE with there common error in english

and some PDP member are critizising zahra Of mispelling

zahra go on joor u better pass our president and our fist lady and our osun faliure governorship candt.

Buhari till dem know correct english

Na dis kain thread de turn to english class. Make i start with pidgin first to avoid story wey de touch.
people wey go buy space after me, make una take note.

Here we're talking about written speech pasted on a facebook page, what about those speeches gej verbally read to our listening where he adressed Nigerians as 'my fellow compatriots' ?
Gej is human...mistakes are allowed, but not by our president and his media team.

I can only imagine why it is so; they are always taken 'un-aware'.
*in pope's voice* 'who am I to judge'?

I keep wondering y our leaders can't speak, compose simple and good english yet they are complaining abt massive failure of youths @ WAEC and university

jingh:
SECOND PARAGRAPH : Christmas is a time of joyous
family gatherings and as President, I see every Nigerian
as a member of my family and I urge us all to retain the
unique sense of brotherly love that this season evokes
beyond the Yuletide period



Note: (1) This paragraph is mostly meaningless. The
President’s attempt to define Christmas only as “a time
for joyous family gatherings” does not reflect an
intelligible articulation of the purpose of Christmas. In
fact, religious scholars do not believe that the central
connotation of Christmas involves family gatherings, as
there is no such religious obligation for families to
gather. Of course, he could have avoided this ambiguity
by indicating that this is his own understanding of the
meaning of Christmas. (2) Also the use of the definite
article “a” before “time” does not reflect the best
practice. (3) Similarly, there ought to be the definite
article “the” before the word “President” in that
paragraph. (4) The most disturbing error in the second
paragraph of the speech has to do with the last seven
words in that paragraph, “this season evokes beyond
the Yuletide period”. The problems here are: (a) What is
the “season” mentioned here? That is Christmas season.
(b) What is the “Yuletide period” mentioned here? That is
Christmas period. So, that statement really says
something like this: “This Christmas season evokes
beyond the Christmas period”. You can see immediately
the dumbness of such statement. It is a lazy statement
by a lazy writer. And, by the way, what is the meaning of
the word “Yuletide”? It is defined by Wikipedia as: “Yule
or Yuletide (“Yule time”) is a Pagan religious festival
observed by the historical Germanic peoples, later being
absorbed into and equated with the Christian festival of
Christmas.” The English Dictionary defined it as “Archaic
way of saying “Christmas””. Now why would this writer
use such term, really?

When did 'a' become a definite article?

Caseless:
Na dis kain thread de turn to english class. Make i start with pidgin first to story wey de touch.
people wey go buy space after me, make una take note.

We dare not start with pidgin. People like Takedat, Katsumoto et al, should be here righting the wrongs!

This won't make FP because of Nairaland and their biased mods. But they didn't think twice of moving Zahra Buhari's own to the front page which shouldn't even be classified as a mistake.

I see the 21billion is working.

donphilopus:


We dare not start with pidgin. People like Takedat, Katsumoto et al, should be here righting the wrongs!

are they the 'soyinka-wannabe' on NL?

Caseless:
are they the 'soyinka-wannabe' on NL?

Those guys are bosses.

donphilopus:


Those guys are bosses.

I haven't met them.

The man is a confirmed iti bolibö.
There is this particular one I was unfortunate to watch during his campaign stop in sokoto when d crowd was moving towards d barricade and d policemen were trying to push them back;our dear president said :"police,don't WORRY them,they won't harm me".
I was like this can not be a genuine pH.d holder!

Caseless:
I haven't met them.

I respect those dudes alongside some other intellectuals.

Caseless:
Here we're talking about written speech pasted on a facebook page, what about those speeches gej verbally read to our listening where he adressed Nigerians as 'my fellow compatriots' ?
Gej is human...mistakes are allowed, but not by our president and his media team.

I can only imagine why it is so; they are always taken 'un-aware'.
*in pope's voice* 'who am I to judge'?

I guess u only open ur ears when GEJ is deliverying speech

But closes it wen GMB is deliverying his

slowpoke