EXCLUSIVE: In the last 20 years, I’ve spent an hour daily reading dictionaries –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?
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.