A PRESIDENTIAL SPEECH FULL OF ERRORS: 20 MISTAKES SPOTTED IN JONATHAN'S CHRISTMAS MESSAGE

By Emeka Ugwuonye on 26/12/2013.
My attention was drawn to President Jonathan's goodwill message to Nigerians on Christmas. Having read many speeches from the President...

of Nigeria, I am always certain that there would be grammatical and
other kinds of errors in his speeches. Indeed, I have stopped
bothering about it. But when I read his present speech, I had to
comment, initially for the benefit of my friends.
The responses to my comment promoted me to further analyze that
speech. (Before you go further, remember that anybody can make a
mistake. It is a matter of degree; but the office of the President of
Nigeria should not make the same type of mistake that an individual
like me could make). The funny thing is that I am actually familiar
with how the presidency works or should work. There are layers of
personnel to ensure that anything coming from the President, directly
in his name, reflects the best the country is capable of. That is
supposed to be the general state of affair and everybody in the
presidency understands and works towards that. The office of the
President would therefore have the best secretaries and other support
staff working in a structure where they are positioned to detect
errors and correct them before the matter gets out.
For instance, it is a serious problem to submit a document to the
President for his signature, where such a document has an error in it.
We refer to documents signed by the President as documents that are
watertight and perfect. They leave no room for typos or other
problems. That is why a document bearing directly the name of the
President would go through several checks and reviews before
publication.
Note that this was not a speech delivered on behalf of the President
by an aide. It is not a thing by a press rep. It is not a thing by his
advisers. It is directly in the name of the President. So, efforts
should have been expended to ensure that it met the highest standards.
If they were not sure of that standard or they lack the time and
resources to ensure the highest standards, they could have had the
speech given on behalf of the President by some other official.
What I think happened was that they allowed a low grade, low talent
(but highly paid) connected political player's relative to man the
President's Facebook account. They forgot that even though it was
Facebook, that was the President directly communicating with the
world.
Some people naively think that this is just about grammatical error.
They are satisfied that he even bothered to greet them on Christmas.
But, rather, this matter reflects failure at several levels. It is
failure to understand the use and significance of the social media in
modern governance. It is failure to understand the people and the
audience the President is trying to reach. It is a failure to select
the right officials based on competence rather than political
patronage. It is simply a huge failure to lead the country with any
sense of modernity.
A few days ago, President Putin of Russia had a meet-the-press session
attended by 3,000 press people. Putin communicated with the world with
the latest and best technology that exists. He communicated like a
pro. But here, the President of the most populous black nation in the
world where 65% of the population comprises of people under age 30
could not even send a simple message on Facebook without so many basic
errors.
Now, I used this simple issue to test Nigerians. I wanted to see how
many of the youth would understand what is in issue here. Many do not
understand that if you don't speak any language of your choice in the
correct grammatical format, that would cause you to say the opposite
of what you meant to say. Now, may we examine in some specific details
the statement by the President of Nigeria, as follows: (I placed my
comments as Notes after the first four paragraphs).PRESIDENT
JONATHAN'S SPEECH: FIRST PARAGRAPH: As the world marks the birth of
Jesus Christ, let me, on behalf of myself, my family and the Federal
Government, extend the good tidings of peace, progress and joy to
every home throughout our beloved country Nigeria.
Note: This paragraph has the errors such as: (1) The world does not
mark the birth of Jesus Christ, really. Only Christians do that. This
is because the word "marks", as used in this first paragraph means: "a
festival to mark an anniversary: celebrate, observe, recognize,
acknowledge, keep, honor, solemnize, pay tribute to, salute,
commemorate, remember, memorialize." Only Christians do that for the
birth of "Jesus Christ". Also, there is a difference in connotation
between "Jesus of Nazareth" and "Jesus Christ". Jesus of Nazareth is a
historical figure that everybody agrees was born, lived and was killed
in the region of Judea about 2000 years ago. The Jews and Muslims and
everyone else really call him "Jesus of Nazareth", but they do not
accept that he is "Christ" the Messiah. So the world could not really
"mark" the birth of "Jesus Christ", any more than it would be correct
to say "the world marks the birth of Mohammed". (2) The use of the
phrase, "on behalf of myself" is questionable on grounds of
appropriateness. If you must add "myself" on the list of people the
President was speaking for, that should be the last on the list. (3)
The phrase, "the Federal Government", is incomplete and ambiguous.
While acceptable in some clear contexts, it is ambiguous to someone
who might not automatically know that Jonathan is the President of
Nigeria. So, that phrase ought to have been "Federal Government of
Nigeria" or anything else that specifies the country in question. This
is particularly so because the phrase is being used for the first time
in the speech. It is true that he subsequently added in the same
paragraph the word "Nigeria". But that does not cure the error. (4)
The last phrase in that paragraph, "our beloved country Nigeria" is
incorrectly written. There ought to be a comma between "country" and
"Nigeria". The funny thing is that if the writer had used the readily
available spell checker on his or her computer, many of these errors
would have been highlighted and taken out. So, how could our officials
be so lazy and daft?
SECOND PARAGRAPH: Christmas is a time of joyous family gatherings and
as President, I see every Nigerian as a member of my family and I urge
us all to retain the unique sense of brotherly love that this season
evokes beyond the Yuletide period.
Note: (1) This paragraph is mostly meaningless. The President's
attempt to define Christmas only as "a time for joyous family
gatherings" does not reflect an intelligible articulation of the
purpose of Christmas. In fact, religious scholars do not believe that
the central connotation of Christmas involves family gatherings, as
there is no such religious obligation for families to gather. Of
course, he could have avoided this ambiguity by indicating that this
is his own understanding of the meaning of Christmas. (2) Also the use
of the definite article "a" before "time" does not reflect the best
practice. (3) Similarly, there ought to be the definite article "the"
before the word "President" in that paragraph. (4) The most disturbing
error in the second paragraph of the speech has to do with the last
seven words in that paragraph, "this season evokes beyond the Yuletide
period". The problems here are: (a) What is the "season" mentioned
here? That is Christmas season. (b) What is the "Yuletide period"
mentioned here? That is Christmas period. So, that statement really
says something like this: "This Christmas season evokes beyond the
Christmas period". You can see immediately the dumbness of such
statement. It is a lazy statement by a lazy writer. And, by the way,
what is the meaning of the word "Yuletide"? It is defined by Wikipedia
as: "Yule or Yuletide ("Yule time") is a Pagan religious festival
observed by the historical Germanic peoples, later being absorbed into
and equated with the Christian festival of Christmas." The English
Dictionary defined it as "Archaic way of saying "Christmas"". Now why
would this writer use such term, really?
THIRD PARAGRAPH: While we will surely mark this holiday in our
different ways and according to our established traditions, it is my
desire that we all celebrate Christmas with some minimum comforts and
my team and I have long prepared for this by working to improve our
infrastructure especially those that most serve us during this season.
Note: This paragraph, like all other paragraphs in the speech,
contains at least four errors. I don't need to mention them here,
except to point out the most bizarre of the errors. That has to do
with the phrase: "it is my desire that we all celebrate Christmas with
some minimum comfort..." What does the President mean to say here? Is
he urging Nigerians to show restraint in their consumption during the
period, which might make sense, or does he really mean that Nigerians
should be minimally comfortable during the period? (If Nigerians don't
have electricity during the period, yes, that would be "minimum
comfort" for them). It is totally bizarre for such ambiguity and
confusion to emanate from a simple statement of goodwill from the
President of Nigeria. I will not bother to list the errors in the
remaining paragraphs. Those are even too disturbing for anyone to
bother to point them out. It is easier to point out the correct
statements here than to point out the errors because only about five
sentences in the entire speech are correct grammatically and
otherwise. And most of the factual assertions in the speech are false
and most statements of opinion in it are illogical.
FOURTH PARAGRAPH: Knowing that thisperiodis the peakperiodfor cross
country travels amongst our people, this administration has fast
tracked the repair and reconstruction of artery roads nationwide. We
have also ensured that the nightmare our citizens suffered at fuel
stations during periods like this is put behind us. For the second
year in a row, train services have continued to run from the Lagos
Terminus all the way toThehinterlands of the North. This year, we also
introduced cargo and haulage train services from the Lagos Port to up
country locations.
FIFTH PARAGRAPH: With the Enugu airport now handling international
flights, more of our people can fly directly to theirlocalities
resultingin reduced pressure on our roads.SIXTH PARAGRAPH: Our
policies to spur local production of staples such as rice and wheat
are bearing fruits as evidenced by the 2013 Global Hunger
Index.SEVENTH PARAGRAPH: Although I will not depend on statistics
until every Nigerian has enough to eat at all times and in every
season, the report is salutary andonlygalvanizes us to further
action.EIGHTH PARAGRAPH: I have also personally monitored government's
fiscaleffort whichwe ensured were tightened for the purpose of
avoiding or severely reducing the seasonal inflationary trends on
consumer goods around this time of theyear withthe attendant result
that inflation is at single digit rate.NINETH PARAGRAPH: These steps
have been undertaken because of my belief that every good and great
thing is possible in our country if we desire to achieve it.TENTH
PARAGRAPH: So, as we all celebrate with friends and family, I say from
me to you, Merry Christmas and may the joys of the season extend from
our individual homes to those of our neighbors and neighboring
communities irrespective of religion and region. GEJ