Rethinking Peter Obi’s CNN Interview

Close associates of populists and autocrats often salve their loins with timid consciences when it comes to telling the truth about certain things that may rub on the self-conceited egos of their masters. Every time, politicians and rulers always want to hear only those exhilarating words that are sweet songs to their ears ad infinitum while their negatives and dark sides are better kept away from them perpetually. Despots like Kim Jong-un of North Korea and Vladimir Putin of Russia would always want to be venerated and idolized but when their inner-circle associates tell them some some bitter truths contrary to their own perceptions, they are doomed for demotion or removal from their exalted positions.

That Mr Peter Obi has taken the political landscape of Nigeria by storm is no news again. That he has many followers who are enamoured to him and are ready to sacrifice anything for him to be the next president is incontestable. The mystique surrounding his candidacy is interestingly baffling despite running his campaigns on his populist ‘no shishi’ ideology in a country where many would-be voters are looking for pecuniary gratifications. Obi has now personified and symbolized a beacon of light in our dark dungeon who has eluded our political space for long. Ever since he dumped the Peoples Democratic Party and became the flag bearer of the Labour Party, his trajectory as a populist has soared astronomically and he is bestriding our political terrain with much fervour like a colossus. His imminent emergence on the world stage is ipso facto, a matter of time.

However, behind the camaraderie, razzmatazz and populism of Obi is a roving spectre of darkness which is only discernible by a few who have closely followed his verbal pronouncements for years. I must concede that all humans do have those flints of imperfections but while some realize them and strive for perfection, others are oblivious of them and therefore, will continue to take their shots in the dark.

Snippets first had it that Mr Obi was to be interviewed by CNN’s Christiane Maria Heideh Amanpour in August 2022, but it was not to be. Fortuitously, on 16th September 2022, I watched Obi in the interview aired on the CNN’s ONE WORLD anchored by our delectable Zain Asher. It was an inimitable platform Obi needed to announce himself on the world stage on a silver’s platter. But I daresay, he failed to convince many—even his unctuous chauvinist brigade—through long conversational pauses, inarticulations, elementary malapropisms and solecisms which could have left many stylisticians gasping for their breaths while the interview lasted.

Solecisms, common among many politicians worldwide can be due to mother-tongue interference, over-generalization of ideas and errors due to the effect of teaching, omission, redundancy and many more. In his presidency, G.W Bush was renowned for his many speaking flubs. Donald Trump, in the run-up to the electioneering processes in his tweet at 7:57 pm on July 24th 2016 went thus: “Looks to me like Bernie people will fight. If not, there (sic) blood, sweat and tears was a total waist (sic) of time. Kaine stands for opposite”. The infractions went viral and their consequent reverberations quickly made him delete the tweet thereafter, but the import of the gaffes was not lost on many people all over the world.

Obi’s quirks and quiddities, grammatically, are not elegant or enticing. Who cares a hoot in a country of 220 million of people bedevilled by many day-to-day survivalist preoccupations! Today’s students don’t care either, by resorting to their usual refrain, “who English don hep?”. But in this myopic rationalization is an inherent danger of our in-coming number one citizen who should not only launder our image on the international turf, but should turn the tide by killing that atavistic bug which continues to suck the blood of any intending overseas students or workers by forcing a cancellation of the International English Language Testing Systems (IELTS) through his impeccable, flawless English usage during engagements with international colleagues without incurring their opprobrium.

Many times, I have heard Obi say, “…my junior sister..” or “..he have done…” among his many grammatical transgressions in the past. That particular CNN interview with Zain Asher went thus:

Zain: On failed leadership in the past….

Obi: “…if you have a leader who have (sic) the capacity…”

The correct statement should have been: …if you have a leader who has….( 3rd person singular should be followed by ‘has’ and not ‘have’.

Zain: On Obi’s plans for turning Nigeria from a consumption economy to a production economy

Obi: “… to support a critical areas (sic) of production…”

The correct statement should have been: …to support a critical area of production…or to support critical areas of production. Plurals are not preceded by article ‘a’.

Zain: On Obi’s plan for the economy

Obi: “… the vast land of the North are (sic) invested on (sic)….”

The correct statement should have been: the vast land of the North is invested in

Zain: On insecurity in the North: Kidnapping, banditry, BH

Obi: “….nobody wants to go to an insecured place”

The correct statement should have been: …nobody wants to go to an insecure place ( Adjective of secure is secure)

Zain: On being supported by the North for victory

Obi: “….the people in the North don’t have a secured (sic) place….so, is (sic) people in the South”.

The correct statement should have been: …the people in the North don’t have a secure place…..so, are people in the South. ‘Are’ is the plural form of ‘is’ which Obi wrongly deployed in the conversation.

Mr Peter Obi has a rich coterie of intellectuals and award-winning writers who should tell him the plain truth with a view to correcting all those elementary gaffes so as to be more confident and effortlessly articulate his points if he coasts to victory and becomes our next president, come 2023. Speeches and writings don’t have to be intricately arcane but they should pass the integrity tests of elementary lexis and structure.

– Dr Afelumo is a practising physician.