I HAVE A DOUBLE-BARRELED MASTER'S DEGREE - PATRICK OBAHIAGBON

Read this interesting interview grammarian and current Chief of Staff
to the Edo State Governor, Patrick Obahiagbon granted to Punch.

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 GRAMMER?
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 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.

HOW DO YOU TALK TO YOUR WIVE, CHILDREN AND 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 GRAMMER?
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.

DID YOU WRITE EXAMS IN SCHOOL USING 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.

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.

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 LANG.? 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.
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 onpepper 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 andchichi dodoanother day.

WHY DO YOU PULL YOUR TROUSERS UP BEYOND THE WAIST?
Hahahaha….That trousers style is calledYohji 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.