Be informed that the phrase ‘well meaning Nigerians’ is not appropriate when we mean to say ‘kind, good-hearted or generous Nigerians’; ‘well meaning’ means ‘trying to help, but often making the situation worse,’ according to the Longman Active Study Dictionary (LASD), p. 1011. Thus, it is better to say or write, ‘I appreciate all good-hearted Nigerians whom made this achievement a dream come true,’ not ‘… a dream come through,’ (LASD, p. 266). Also, be in the know that the definite article ‘the’ should precede ‘peace’ in ‘Justice of the Peace’ (LASD, p. 488). Thus, we had better write or say, ‘The Justice of the Peace offers to hold peace talks with the aggrieved residents living on (not ‘living in’) Bodija Estate,’ not ‘Justice of Peace’. Also, ‘peace talks’ is always pluralised (LASD, p. 652), and, according to the Oxford Collocations Dictionary for Students of English, p. 283, as regards ‘estate’, ‘live’ collocates with ‘on’, not ‘in’, as in ‘to live on an estate.’ Similarly, be in the know that ‘the’ in should precede ‘Bar’ in the phrase ‘call to the Bar,’ as in ‘A number of lawyers were called to the Bar last year,’ while ‘the’ should not precede ‘bars’ in the phrase ‘behind bars,’ as in ‘The notorious Boko Haram leader is now behind bars.’ It should be noted that the first letter of ‘Bar’ in ‘called to the Bar’ is capitalised without the plural maker ‘-s’, while the first letter of ‘bars’ in ‘behind bars’ is capitalised with the plural maker ‘-s’ (LASD, p. 63; OALD, 10th Edition, p. 108).
Additionally, I would like to call the attention of the Federal Government of Nigeria and the National Orientation Agency to line six (6) of stanza three (3) of the National Anthem, ‘Nigeria, We Hail Thee,’ which reads: Nigeria may be blessed. For the most part, the sentence ‘Nigeria may be blessed’ is denigrating and not assertive as the modal auxiliary verb ‘may’ is used to indicate ‘possibility’ as defined by the Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (CALD), 4th Edition, p. 955, in that it suggests that that Nigeria will be blessed is dicey or uncertain. In other words, using ‘may’ means that we are not sure that Nigeria, as a sovereign State, will receive God’s blessings despite our collective efforts to hoist the flag of the country. For this reason, it is recommended that the modal auxiliary ‘may’ be replaced with either ‘shall’ or ‘will’ as both of them indicate certainty and assertivenes, depicting that something certainly will or must happen (CALD, 4th Edition, p. 1416). In this case, the sentence will read: ‘Nigeria will be blessed’ or ‘Nigeria shall be blessed.’ Although ‘shall’ is stronger than ‘will’, both of them are used to show a positive declaration without the negative marker ‘not’.
In the same vein, in line two (2) of stanza three (3) of the National Anthem, there is a grammatical mistake in the phrase, ‘Grant this our one request,’ as the demonstrative adjective ‘this’, the possessive determiner ‘our’ and the numerical determiner ‘one’ are used as determiners. In line with Quirk and Greenbaum (1973) and Swan (2005), in the English language, two (or more) determiners cannot co-occur. Thus, the line should read either ‘Grant this request,’ ‘Grant our request,’ or ‘Grant one request.’ Also, in line three (3) of stanza one (1), both ‘tribe’ and ‘tongue’ should be in plural forms. The reason is that it is not ‘tribe’ and ‘tongue’ that are compared. Nigeria has no fewer than 371 tribes (see The Vanguard, published on 10 May, 2017). Moreover, Nigeria, as noted by Blench’s (2020) Atlas of Nigerian Languages, has no fewer than 550 languages (i.e. tongues). So, in the context, it should be indicated that, ‘… tribes and tongues may differ …’ (that is, ‘tribes may differ’ and ‘languages may differ’) — this line establishes the fact that there are different tribes (which are being compared) and different tongues (which are being compared) in Nigeria, and this fact should be encapsulated in the line.
On the one hand, I would rather that you said or wrote, ‘Politics is a numbers game,’ not ‘Politics is a game of number.’ According to the CALD, 4th Edition, p. 1051, the idiom, ‘a numbers game,’ refers to ‘a situation in which the most important factor is how many of a particular thing there are, especially when you disapprove of this.’ So, we had better say or write, ‘The House of Representatives always plays the numbers game,’ rather than say or write ‘The House of Representatives always plays a game of number,’ when it ‘uses amounts or figures to support an argument, often in a way that confuses or misleads people’ with reference to the Collins Co-build Dictionary (Online). On the other hand, the phrase ‘do-or-die’ is always a hyphenated compound adjective when it precedes a noun, and the hyphens should not be omitted. Also, according to Quirk and Greenbaum (1973), in Standard (British) English, ‘us’, which is the accusative form of ‘we’, appears after prepositions such as to, between, among, etc. Thus, it is not grammatically correct when we write, ‘To we, Nigerians, politics is not a do or die affair,’ instead, we had best write or say ‘To us, Nigerians, politics is not a do-or-die affair’ (Merriam-Webster’s Advanced Learner’s English Dictionary, p. 499). However, when only the phrase, ‘do or die’, succeeds such linking verbs as the simple forms of be (i.e., am, are, is, was and were), become, seem, appear, etc., as in ‘Politics has become do or die,’ or ‘To us, politics is not do or die,’ the phrase should not be hyphenated.
In addition, ‘to commission,’ in line with the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (OALD), 10th Edition, p. 302, is ‘to ask somebody officially to write or create something or to do a task for you,’ while ‘to inaugurate,’ as defined by the OALD (10th Edition, p. 800), means ‘to open a building or start an organisation officially with a special ceremony.’ The Longman Dictionary of Business (Online) says that ‘to inaugurate’ is ‘to begin a new system, service, project, etc.’ Therefore, with regard to developmental projects and rehabilitation of infrastructure (not infrastructures), judging by the definitions of both ‘inaugurate’ and ‘commission’, it is best to use the former. Besides, it is overkill and tautology to add ‘project’ to ‘white elephant’, as in ‘white elephant project’ (OALD, 10th Edition, p. 1780). So, you should avoid saying or writing, ‘The Counselor is committed to commissioning many a white elephant project such as street furnitures.’ I would rather that you said or wrote, ‘The Councillor is committed to inaugurating many a white elephant such as street furniture.’ It should be noted that ‘furniture’ and ‘infrastructure’ are mass nouns and cannot take the plural marker ‘-s’. You should know full well (not, ‘know fully well’; CALD, 4th Edition, p. 628) that the noun ‘ghost’ ( = the spirit of a dead person that a living person believes [that] he or she can see or hear; OALD, 10 Edition, p. 666) and the adjective ‘faceless’ ( = having no identity that is easy to notice; OALD, 10 Edition, p. 555) cannot be used interchangeably. Thus, it is high time that you started writing or saying, ‘The Governor has vowed to fish out all faceless workers (not ‘ghost workers’) in the State.’
Furthermore, while the phrase ‘veto power’ is less frequently used in the English language, the phrase ‘the power of veto’ is more frequently used (CALD, 4th Edition, p. 1744). Similarly, ‘to impeach someone,’ meaning, ‘to charge a government or a politician with committing a serious crime in connection with a political job,’ (BBC English Dictionary, p. 579) is different from ‘to remove someone from office,’ meaning, ‘to force someone to leave an important job or a position of power because he or she has behaved badly or not in a way you approve of,’ (CALD, 4th Edition, p. 1301). Without a doubt, that someone is impeached does not mean that the person will be removed from office. In retrospect, on 12 January, 2006, the former Governor of Oyo State, Ọba Adéwọ̀lú Ládọjà, was removed from office, while President Donald Trump was impeached on 18 December, 2019 and on 13 January, 2021, respectively, but was not removed from office. For this reason, it is appropriate to say or write, ‘President Bola Tinubu, GCFR, does not have the power of veto to remove Governor Siminani Fubara from office.’ ‘Impeachment’ is the nominalised form of the verb ‘impeach’. Remember that ‘the electorate’, ‘the elite’ and ‘the youth’, especially, when used to refer to both males and females, do not take the plural marker ‘-s’; also, an of-partitive phrase should succeed ‘the youth’ as noted in Quirk and Greenbaum (1973). To clarify this, you had best say or write, ‘The electorate have the power to sack any democratically elected official’; ‘The youth of Nigeria and the elite are parts of the electorate.’ (Those that believe in the ruling of ‘the elite’ are called ‘elitists’.) Similarly, the past form and the past participle form of the verb ‘cast’ is ‘cast’, not ‘casted’. So, do not say or write, ‘I have casted my vote’; you should say or write, ‘I have cast my vote.’
Most importantly, with reference to Swan (2005), it is worthy of note that initial-letter acronyms, such as FCT, APC, PDP, NNPP, AA, AAC, ADP, APM, APP, BP, MTN, among others, which have their letters pronounced individually, should be preceded by the definite article ‘the’, e.g. the FCT, the APC, the PDP, etc. Contrarily, initial-letter acronyms, such as APGA, NITEL, WAEC, among others, which are pronounced as words, are not preceded by the definite article ‘the’. Also, an apostrophe (’) and an ‘-s’ should be attached to any of the acronyms in the final position to indicate possession. For instance, it is appropriate to say or write, ‘The PDP’s candidates are working hand in glove (not ‘hand in hand’) with the APC’s candidates’ — do not misplace the possessive marker attached to the acronyms. Similarly, the full meaning of PDP is People’s Democratic Party, not Peoples Democratic Party. As a rule, I would rather that you wrote magistrates’ court instead of magistrate court because the court is meant for magistrates and the plural noun magistrates’ (CALD, 4th Edition, p. 931), with an apostrophe (’) after the ‘-s’, becomes a possessive adjective which modifies ‘court’; the plural form of magistrates’ court is magistrates’ courts. Meanwhile, it is tautology to use the phrase ‘electioneering campaign’ as both ‘electioneering’ and ‘campaign’ are synonymous. Thus, it is not grammatically correct to say or write, ‘The political louts, who disrupted the electioneering campaign, were brought before the magistrate court’; it is better to say or write, ‘The political louts, who disrupted the campaign / the electioneering, were brought before the magistrates’ court,’ (OALD, 10th Edition, pp. 213 & 500). Nonetheless, the noun that precedes ‘regime’ may (not) take an apostrophe (’) and an ‘-s’, as in Obasanjo’s Regime or Obasanjo Regime.
Mostly, the definite article ‘the’ should precede ‘majority’, ‘minority’, ‘Reverend’ and ‘Honourable’. So, it is best to say or write, ‘The Right Honourable Debo Ogundoyin favours both the minority and the majority in Oyo State. In fact, one good turn (not ‘term’) deserves another.’ In addition, in line with Practical English Usage (Swan, 2005), the definite article ‘the’ should precede ‘(General) Elections’ when it is preceded by a year, say 1993, and ‘Late’ and the first letter of each word should be in upper case; for example, it is apposite to say or write, ‘Recently, Major General Ibrahim Babangida, rtd, admitted that the Late Chief Moshood Olawale Abiola won the 1993 General Elections.’ In a like manner, in Nigeria, because the President is vested with the power of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, the noun phrase ‘Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces’ is an apposition to ‘President’; when both noun phrases are used together, in that one gives additional information about the other, both nouns will share the same modifier (Quirk & Greenbaum, 1973). It is best to say or write, ‘President Bola Tinubu, the President Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, felicitates (not ‘felicitates with’) the Senate President on his birthday,’ not ‘the President and the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces’. Differing from this, as noted by Swan (2005), the definite article ‘the’ should not precede names of organisations and / or institutions when such organisations and / or institutions begin with the name of a town. With this in mind, it is grammatical to say or write, ‘Of late, Oyo State Government has paid all the outstanding pensions of pensioners in the State,’ not ‘Of recent, the Oyo State Government … pensioneers.’ Note that ‘pensioneer’ is a non-standard spelling of ‘pensioner’, and that ‘of recent’ does not exist in English.
Moreover (not ‘moreso’), be informed that there are two main categories of honorific titles, and these are pre-nominal honorific titles and post-nominal honorific titles. On the whole, two pre-nominal honorific titles cannot co-occur at the initial position of a name of a person; e.g., we cannot say or write, ‘Ọba (Dr) Oluseyi Clinton was a man many of parts’ or ‘Prof. (Mrs) ’Toyin Ajisafe has won an Honorary Doctorate Degree award.’ I would rather that you said or wrote, ‘Ọba Oluseyi Clinton, Ph.D., was a man of parts,’ or ‘Prof. ’Toyin Ajisafe has won an Honorary Doctoral Degree award,’ — ‘doctoral’ is an adjective, and it (not ‘doctorate’ which is a noun) should precede ‘degree’. However, when a pre-nominal honorific title, say Chief, appears before a name of a person whom is also a Philosophy Doctor, it is best to use Ph.D. after the name as and when due (not ‘as at when due’), instead of using Dr (or Dc.) with the other pre-nominal honorific title. Generally, it is recommended that only one pre-nominal honorific title that suits an occasion or a context be used before a name while other honorific titles are used post-nominally. Also, in Standard (British) English, when ‘engineer’ is used as either a professional title or an academic title, it appears after, not before, a name. So, it is not standard to say or write, ‘Governor (Engr) ’Sola Samosangudu has approved the installation of concrete electricity poles across the State.’ Note that the adjective of ‘electricity’ is ‘electric’ or ‘electrical’; ‘electrical’, not ‘electricity’, collocates with ‘pole’. Hence, it is best to say or write, ‘Governor ’Sola Samosangudu, Engr, has approved the installation of concrete electrical poles across the State.’
In particular, a number of people write ‘committee of nations’, instead of ‘comity of nations’. The CALD (Online) defines ‘comity of nations’ as ‘the friendship and respect between countries shown by accepting each other’s laws, political systems, and customs. ‘Nigeria has regained her voice in the comity of nations,’ not ‘committee of nations’ as it does exist in the English lexicon. Apart from this, it is of great importance that one pays heed to the spelling of ‘Commonwealth’, which is a closed compound word, as in ‘Commonwealth of Nations’; there should be no space between the word. So, one can say or write, ‘The Commonwealth of Nations felicitates Nigeria on her Independence Day’ — not ‘… Independent Day.’ On the other hand, of late, the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC) introduces civics into the new national education curriculum for basic education with a view to teaching pupils and students their civic duties. However, with reference to the OALD (10th Edition, p. 266), it is overkill to add ‘education’ to ‘civic’ because ‘civics’, like mathematics, physics, linguistics, etc., is a school subject, and does not need ‘education’ to be meaningful.
For the most part, the phrase ‘tried and tested / trusted’ (British English) or ‘tried and true’ (American English) is an idiom which means ‘that you have used or relied on [an entity] in the past successfully,’ (OALD, 10th Edition, p. 1673), while the idiom ‘neck and neck’ means ‘level with somebody in a race or a competition,’ (OALD, 10th Edition, p. 1041). In addition, one does not ‘rub mind with another person,’ but one ‘rubs shoulders (BrE) or rubs elbows (AmE) with another person’ (CALD, 4th Edition, p. 1346). In view of these definitions, it is not standard to say or write, ‘The two guber candidates are neck to neck because both of them are tested and trusted, and, be that as it may, the members of the electoral commission are rubbing minds with one another in order to organise a second ballot,’ since ‘gubernatorial’ is never shortened. Rather, it is best to say or write, ‘The two governorship candidates (BrE) / gubernatorial candidates (AmE) are neck and neck because both of them are tried and tested / trusted (BrE) / tried and true (AmE), and, be that as it may, the members of the electoral commission are rubbing shoulders (BrE) / rubbing elbows (AmE) with one another in order to organise a second ballot.’ Also, one had best say, ‘The Election Petition Tribunal overturned (not ‘upturned’; OALD, 10th Edition, p. 1108) the victory of the ABC’s governorship candidate.’
Also, it behoves me to inform you that the term ‘cross-carpeting’ is non-standard, and that the verb ‘to decamp,’ meaning ‘to leave a place suddenly, often secretly,’ (OALD, 10th Edition, p. 398), cannot be used in place of the verb ‘to defect,’ meaning ‘to leave a political party, a country, etc., to join another that is considered to be enemy,’ (OALD, 10th Edition, p. 405). With this in mind, it is appropriate to say or write, ‘The President has not only set up a ten-man ombudsman to inquire into the issue of party switching / floor-crossing / crossing the floor by some legislators, but has also prevented members of his political party from defecting to other political parties.’ Furthermore, the verb ‘to go’ collocates with the verbal adjective ‘unpunished’; it does not collocate with the phrase ‘scot-free’. Rather, the phrasal verb ‘to get off’ collocates with ‘scot-free’. However, ‘to go unpunished’ is used formally, while ‘to get off scot-free’ is used informally. To demonstrate this, one should say or write, ‘The police are on the alert (not ‘on alert’) to round up evil perpetrators whom are planning to launch reprisals (not ‘reprisal attacks’) on the Governor’s motorcade. Also, the Governor has directed them to shoot on sight (not ‘shoot at sight’), and anyone, who is caught, will not go unpunished / get off scot-free.’ The noun phrase ‘the police’ is always plural and agrees with a plural verb, while ‘reprisal attack’ is tautology.
Last but not least (not ‘the last but not the least’), for the sake of grammaticality, professionalism and exactitude, as a politician and / or a public figure, it is about time that you stopped using the phrase, ‘I stand on existing protocols …’ when you are greeting the audience in a formal occasion. ‘Protocol’, according to the CALD (4th Edition, p. 1233), is ‘the system of rules and acceptable behaviour used at official ceremonies and occasions.’ Funnily enough, a ‘protocol’ is neither a pedestal nor a platform on which human beings can stand. Having said that, in a formal occasion, when one is asked to present a speech, it is suggested that one begin with a greeting that suits the time, say ‘Good morning,’ ‘Good afternoon,’ or ‘Good evening.’ After the greeting, it is recommended that a general address to the audience be made by the speaker. In this case, one can use the phrase ‘ladies and gentlemen,’ or ‘distinguished guests.’ Not only that, if one has to recognise dignitaries, including the President, the Vice-President, Senators, Representatives, Ministers, the Chief of Army Staff, Governors, Commissioners, Kings, Emirs, Chiefs, Chancellors, Vice-Chancellors, Provosts, Rectors, Principals, Headmasters, Headmistresses, among others, one has to mention their appropriate designations in a hierarchical order (from the highest to the lowest), as in, ‘Good morning, the President, Your Excellency, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR; the Vice-President, Your Excellency, Kashim Shettima, VPFRN; the Governor of Oyo State, Your Excellency, Governor Seyi Makinde, FNSE; the Chancellor of the University of Ibadan, Sultan Muhammadu Sa’ad Abubakar, CFR; the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Kayode Oyebode Adebowale; and distinguished guests. It is my utmost pleasure to stand before you on this auspicious occasion to ….’ It should be noted that mentioning their official names is optional.
