PATRICK OBAHIAGBON
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?
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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, 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.”
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 the Governor of Edo State, knowing that the 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.
