Nigeria Content Online

Someone once asked
me to respond to the interesting question: Is Nigerian English the same
as Nigerian pidgin? My response: there is pidgin and many variants are
spoken in Nigeria. And there is English and many variants are spoken in
Nigeria. Debating the idea of one Nigerian English is as useful as
saying that there is ONE recipe for cooking egusi soup (yes, soup, NOT
sauce!). There are ways of speaking, and ways of expression that are
distinct to various sections of Nigeria. And it is often possible to
tell where someone is from based on how they handle the English
language. Some of the best masters of English are from Nigeria. And
some of the worst are from Nigeria. What is mildly hilarious is that it
is the latter that usually spends precious time correcting the former.
There is something about some Nigerians and the attainment of knowledge
or whatever; they like to wear it loudly like a Rolex watch, and when
someone is around, they tap it so that someone can tell they have it.
Some would say it is an inferiority complex.

American academics
and intellectuals tend to be quiet about their accomplishments. Do not
make any assumptions about your neighbour working in her backyard, She
may have three PhDs from Ivy league schools and may be secretly
building the next generation nuclear reactor. Just call her Jane. And
when you read her academic papers, they are highly accessible, while
still retaining the requisite substance. American academics tend to be
considerate of the target audience. In contrast, my people love
bombast. I don’t know where that bad habit came from. Ironically, they
are the ones that really need to break it down for the “masses.” Before
you clamber on to any Internet forum that houses Nigerian
intellectuals, please say your prayers, take some painkillers, drink a
quart of cognac and then, only then, start reading. What some may
regard as ‘Nigerian’ English is merely the product of a dysfunction:
bad grammar posing as our national anthem. Go read Goodluck Jonathan’s
babble on his Facebook status. Once you recover from the shock of
reading Presidential atrocious grammar, then you will understand my
frustration.

Please do not die
until you have read as many Onitsha Market literature pamphlets as you
can. The experience will remind you of some of our Nigerian
intellectual elite. In particular, please read Ogali A. Ogali’s
hilarious play Veronica My Daughter, featuring the great master of
bombast, Bomber Billy. Next, you must read Peter “Pan” Enahoro’s
seminal: How to be a Nigerian. That pamphlet is a hoot. Please, please,
please, find a copy and enjoy. It was written almost 50 years ago; not
much about the stereotypical Nigerian has changed other than the
Internet is here and they are all now on Facebook entertaining the
world. Some of the best masters of the English language reside in
Nigeria. When they relocate to America, listening to them the first
couple of months is sheer joy. Give them six months, in the zest to
become the Americans they will never be, the tongue becomes tied up in
knots, they acquire atrocious grammar habits from who knows where, and
guess what, when they visit home, they are “hailed” or envied for
losing their ‘Nigerian accent’.

It is actually the
case that several of our writers were already wired to write nonsense
at home. They come abroad and mangle their already atrocious literary
style with additional bad habits. Then they call this new product
scholarship. I disagree. What some of our writers call academic writing
is simply bad writing. There is no need in my opinion to deploy bombast
where a few or blessed silence would do. From the beginning of colonial
history, our people have been drawn to big words.

Back to Bomber
Billy in Ogali A. Ogali’s Veronica My Daughter. Bomber Billy was the
caricature of the bombastic Nigerian. Here is what Bomber Billy has to
say upon sustaining a bad fall: “As I was descending from a declivity
yesterday with such an excessive velocity, I suddenly lost the centre
of my gravity and was precipitated on the macadised thoroughfare.” He
goes on to assure concerned onlookers thusly: “Don’t put your mind
under perturbation. But after my precipitation whereby my incunabula
got soaked, it was made incumbent on me to divest my habiliments which
were saturated as a result of my immersion in the rivulet.” When asked
if he had gone for treatment, he responded thusly: “I don’t care what
the Medical Officer said but I assure you that this is nothing but a
cocified agency, antipasimodicala producing nothing but voscandum,
miscandum and tiscono. This medicine that I have in hand is called the
GRAND ELECTRICAL PUNCHUTICAL DEMOSCANDUM which cures all diseases
incident to humanity.”

Our writers are starting to be really innovative. In the blogs,
websites, and on Facebook, they are showing us the true face of their
creativity, using the new media to create a fusion of voice, text, and
dance in the oral tradition of our ancestors. I salute them.