THE WORLD’S MOST HILARIOUS FIRST LADY

Something has been trending for the past couple of days in the nation revered as the world’s most populous black nation—Nigeria. This trend has tickled the fancy of many and at the same time sparked a feeling of disgust. It is nothing more than the ‘awesome’ speeches of Dame Patience Jonathan, the wife of Nigeria’s current President seeking for a re-election. It is not new that President Goodluck Jonathan rose from complete obscurity politically to a stratum of enviable eminence. In fact, quite a number of Nigerians christened their kids ‘Goodluck’ because they couldn’t fathom the science behind the ‘luck’ that brought him ‘goodluck’. Ironically, those same parents now look for ‘better’ names for their kids after the six-year reign of President Jonathan made him got  publicly labelled as a ‘failed President’. However, one thing appears common between the President and his wife: bad English. This year when the President addressed the members of Nigeria’s 50,000 capacity church he said “My fellow brethrens”. The word brethren is already plural, so why make it plural again?

When it comes to the frequency of grammatical error Dame Patience Jonathan has crafted a personality that draws the attention of all. At first most Nigerians lampooned her over her bad enunciation, but that’s gone by. Today, people are eager to hear her talk in order to be plunged into endless laughter because of grammatical errors that usually flood her speech. It’s now metamorphosed into a game of laughter. She’s been making a number of linguistically flawed statements recently as she goes around the country campaigning for her husband’s re-election. Some of her hilarious flaws are examined below:

1.    “We need change in Ogun, but a transformation in Abuja” The opposition (APC) that poses a threat to her husband’s re-election sings ‘CHANGE’. The above statement was made in Ogun State, an APC state. What she meant was that the PDP needs to take over the seat of governance in that state and retain power at the federal level. ‘Transformation’ is what members of the PDP sing. Her comment is semantically wrong! Every transformation culminates in change so she’s simply saying CHANGE is needed in Abuja.

2.    “We are not bus conductors that ask for change”. In Nigerian English a ‘bus conductor’ is simply a bus attendant while ‘change’ is the balance that the attendant gives a commuter. ‘Bus conductors’ don’t ask for change they rather give commuters their balance.