This is for all members of Igodomido Fans and bashers club on Nairaland


Habeas Corpus, Honourable Obahiagbon
By Chidi Odinkalu

A S the Honourable Member representing the proud people of Oredo Federal Constituency of Edo State in the House of Representatives, Patrick Obahiagbon is one of those with the privileged responsibility to help end the current crisis of political leadership in Nigeria. To his credit, he has denounced the "judicial macossa dance" over the health of the President, warned against the "constitutional inanity and giddy vacuousity" of stretching the Constitution "to a point of deleterious elastoplasts" and decried the "absurdist theatre" of the "Nigerian political cinematography", which reeks "with ostentatious display of wealth, crass opportunism and vanitas vanitatum."

If you still wonder what all this means, Honorable Obahiagbon protests that he does "not set out deliberately to mystify my audience, to deposit my audience in a portmanteau of indecipherability or in portmanteau of conundrum." His language is the result of a long period of immersion in "societal dialectics" and "the aqua of political cross-currents", which put him in a good position "to contribute efficaciously in a utilitarian modus." To achieve this immersion, the Honorable explains, he spends several hours daily cramming his English Dictionary and has done so for over a quarter of a century. It shows.

Anyone who has the time to devote to studying chapter and verse the English Dictionary for so long and the commitment to showing off the results of such endeavour surely lends themselves to the accusation of suffering a variant of Harold Ickes' "Halitosis of the intellect", or Aneurin Bevan's "fundamentally sterile mind." Honourable Obahiagbon's dictionary is different though. It is polyglot - with generous helpings of Latin, some dance-hall Macossa from Central Africa and a bit of Nigerianese. He advises his colleagues in Parliament, for instance, to "avoid regular big stouting, suyaing" because "big stouting and peppersouping, are not the real issues."

Of course, the marriage of the politician and the foreign language is sometimes risqu� Recall former U.S. Vice President, Dan Quayle's promise to brush up on his Latin before a trip to Latin America . Tony Blair's former Prime Minister, John Prescott, on landing home after a particularly turbulent flight, was reported to have said: "It's great to be back on terra cotta." Apparently, he meant to say terra firma. The inimitable Mr. Prescott recently bettered himself in responding to allegations of bullying against British Prime-Minister, Gordon Brown, in a soon-to-be-published book, which he dismissed as "twittle-twattle". He probably meant "tittle-tattle."

Honourable Obahiagbon thinks he is beyond such verbal mouse traps. As a law student in the University of Benin in the mid-1980s, Patrick Obahiagbon reportedly complained about the failings of one of his lecturers, which left him and his class "in a state of maniacal bewilderment." Graduating from there to the Nigerian Law School, he revealed himself as somewhat of an interesting character when in 1988, Obahiagbon declined to lead a tutorial discussion because the question posed for the legal drafting and conveyancing class, in his words, "indents on omnibus". Invited by the tutor to translate himself into English, Obahiagbon explained: "With respect, sir, I submit that this question is a cul-de-sac!"

William Faulkner famously complained of Ernest Hemingway that "he has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary." Honourable Obahiagbon cannot remotely be accused of not knowing his dictionary or how to send his listener there. He is increasingly credited as the inventor of an entirely new language of legislative business that makes the "maniacal bewilderment" of his under-graduate years sound positively soothing. Honourable Obahiagbon can assert affinity with, if not ancestry from some formidable forebears in the genre of bombast in African literature and popular culture. Like Bambulu in Ene Henshaw's This is Our Chance, he can easily claim that his language is the product of his "endeavour and the materialization of my inventive genius." He may not yet have achieved the originality of "verbal dextrosity" of Uanhenga Xitu's principal protagonist in The World of Mestre Tamoda but his legislative tenure could well draw some parallels from Tamoda's adventures in language. Others may, of course, take the view, as H.L. Mencken did of former U.S. President, Warren Harding, that Obahiagbonese is a mix of "rumble and bumble, flap and doodle, balder and dash", a poor imitation of Masquerade in the legislative Chamber.

Bombast in public life and public communication has a distinguished history, particularly as a memorable put down. Recall, for instance, Spiro Agnew's declamation against "nattering nabobs of negativism" or Gbolabo Ogunsanwo's damnation of the excesses of irresponsible "mandibular walkabouts". Benjamin Disraeli famously dissected William Gladstone as "a sophistical rhetorician, inebriated with the exuberance of his own verbosity, and gifted with an egotistical imagination." No one suggests that Obahiagbon is a latter day Gladstone but his verbiage easily cuts muster as being "inebriated with the exuberance of his own verbosity."

As a member of a Parliament credibly accused of doing nothing, however, Honourable Obahiagbon's verbal moonlighting could well be a great career move. Unlike many of his anonymous, Parliamentary peers, Patrick Obahiagbon has cult status in his sights. He is already a hit on You Tube where many clips of his fancy "idiolect" are on the cusp of going viral. Whenever his romance with the ruling party or his Parliamentary career comes to an end, Honourable Obahiagbon can look forward to a lucrative career in opaque theatre or he could take a paid sabbatical translating himself into a recogniSed language.

While he remains a legislator and public officer, though, the real question has to be, what this moonlighting with the indecipherable has to do with Obahiagbon's day job as a Parliamentarian. He did, after all, promise to discharge his "legislative onus probandi" dutifully. Invited in March 2008, to diagnose the state of the nation, Honourable Obahiagbon said the country was in a state of "economical quagmire, political fantasmagoria and social stupor". Whatever this means, it doesn't sound good and the situation has probably got worse because of the confusion caused by the President's ill-health.

The ruling party and National Assembly, both of which Honourable Obahiagbon belongs to, have decided that the state of being of the President is of no bother to them. Honourable Obahiagbon has the "verbal dextrosity" to make the contrary case on behalf of Nigerians who wish their President well and want to see him. As a lawyer and Parliamentarian, he is well qualified to advocate the case for Habeas Corpus ad Imperium. Our case against the indefinite detention - even on medical grounds - of our sovereign requires an old remedy rendered in new language. In helping us make it, the man popularly known as Igodo Migodo could advance his day job and put himself well on the way to becoming the "political-linguistic Emir" of You Tube.

http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/editorial_opinion/article04/indexn2_html?pdate=090310&ptitle=Habeas%20Corpus,%20Honourable%20Obahiagbon

hehehehe. . . . looks like the writer is trying to show off as well. . . .

Anyway, can the writer prove that Obahiagbon was actively involved in sabotaging legislative processes that would have averted the recent constitutional quaqmire over Yaradua's health?

Ibime:

hehehehe. . . . looks like the writer is trying to show off as well. . . .
Anyway, can the writer prove that Obahiagbon was actively involved in sabotaging legislative processes that would have averted the recent constitutional quaqmire over Yaradua's health?

Exactly my thought when I also saw the article. A case of from frying pan to fire or behaving like a Roman in Rome?

Was wondering why the writer had to stress himself this far just to prove that he too has studied his dictionary very well.I pray Obahiagbon does not reply this,or we will be havin 'vocabularical' war here.

1luvkipsus:

Was wondering why the writer had to stress himself this far just to prove that he too has studied his dictionary very well.I pray Obahiagbon does not reply this,or we will be havin 'vocabularical' war here.

1luvkipsus:

Was wondering why the writer had to stress himself this far just to prove that he too has studied his dictionary very well.I pray Obahiagbon does not reply this,or we will be havin 'vocabularical' war here.

Now that we know that the writer has also studied his dictionary quite well enough to challenger Hon. Obahiagbon. Why don't we organize live debate for both to flex their grammatical muscles .

Well, I don't think the writer is trying to "show off". His write up appears to me to be more of a Patrick Obahiagbon mimicry. This is evident in his insertion of the big words in quotes. Those big words have been used by Pat at different times.

They both need to get a room and work it out.