Chidi Odinkalu: A season of political malapropisms

Politics in Nigeria is essentially of the transhumant selection. It’s not outlined by any large concepts. Aside from maybe the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Nigerian politicians have been  largely devoid of clear ideological moorings. Freed as such from the forces of ideological gravity, the one impetus that they reply to, for essentially the most half, is from the abdomen. Gravity in Nigerian politics tends to be a power outlined by the crucial of human grazing. 

An opposition could also be important for democracy to thrive however no Nigerian politician or occasion needs to linger in that neighbourhood. In energy for 16 years on the centre, the Peoples’ Democratic Social gathering (PDP) has been an abject failure because it went into opposition in 2015, unable to articulate any options to the unmitigated catastrophe that has been the federal government of the All Progressives Congress (APC). Each events are separated by a revolving door. 

Virtually with out exception, the main actors in Nigerian politics have modified or advanced occasion affiliations with disconcerting regularity. Such frequent transition between completely different components of the political alphabet soup can induce neural disorientation or a short-circuiting of even essentially the most grizzled of political wirings to supply logocentric penalties. This may occasionally clarify the wealthy harvest of political malapropism that has come to outline Nigeria’s present political season. 

Take, as an example, the case of Dino Melaye. In 2007, the folks of Kabba/Ijumu Federal Constituency in Kogi State, north-central Nigeria, elected him to the Home of Representatives on the ticket of the PDP. Eight years later, he took the oath of workplace as Senator for Kogi West on the platform of the APC. 

In the present day, Mr Melaye is the official raconteur for the PDP presidential marketing campaign. It’s, nonetheless, not clear that his political wirings have purged themselves of their days within the APC. On the rally of the PDP presidential marketing campaign in Maiduguri, Borno State, on 9 November, Dino passionately knowledgeable the folks that they have been going to be “voting APC everywhere.” One particular person tweeted in response that this sort of malapropism may solely be the results of a bent to “change party like pant.” It’s tough to fault this logic. 

Some malapropisms bear the hallmarks of an unforced error. On a visit to Port Harcourt, capital of Rivers State, the Labour Social gathering presidential candidate, Peter Obi, who was born in 1961 and didn’t enter Excessive College till nicely after the Nigerian Civil Warfare, which resulted in 1970, appeared to claim that he had performed soccer with a person who was born in 1948 and whose highschool sojourn ended within the yr that the civil was started. A few of his supporters tried in vain to dress the implausible within the garb of the smart. To his credit score, Mr. Obi rapidly walked back the declare.

That is rather more than could be stated for the presidential candidate of the APC, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who’s more and more unable to open his mouth with out unleashing a verbal  outbreak of proverbial frogs. In the midst of October 2022, he proudly conferred on Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, a genius for “turning a rotten situation to a bad one.” To the bulk who struggled to understand what this meant, Tinubu sneered that they “need to understand idioms.” 

There was little idiomatic about Tinubu’s mandibular malingering since then. On the launch of his presidential marketing campaign in Jos, Plateau State, on 15 November, Mr Tinubu prayed for God to “bless PD…APC”. He flew thereafter to Owerri in Imo State in the identical week the place he suffered a catastrophic mind fart, addressing his viewers in regards to the profound enterprise of “ba la blu, blu blu, bulaba….”, that has now turn out to be a legend of digital memes. 

When he campaigned in Oporoza, within the Gbaramatu Kingdom of Delta State, on 25 November, Mr. Tinubu referred to the candidate of his occasion because the in-coming governor of “Niger Delta State”, a spot that doesn’t exist in Nigeria. The next day, in Lagos, he couldn’t recall the Everlasting Voters Card (PVC), admonishing his supporters as an alternative to “get your APV, APC, you must vote.” He alone is aware of what “APV” means and whereas APC is a noun, you can’t vote with it however can solely vote for its candidates. 

Spokesman to the Tinubu marketing campaign, Festus Keyamo, spins this bewildering harvest of malapropisms as proof of Mr. Tinubu’s “sense of humour”, however on this he sounds as if he  mocks his principal. Even an individual with Mr. Keyamo’s artistry in shiftiness can’t dare take himself severely on this level. Columnist, Farooq Kperogi, is extra credible when he explains Mr. Tinubu’s barely plausible descent into incomprehensibly childish dialects when it comes to  “the general public indication of a cognitive decline.” Youth organiser Ifeoma Chiata equally fears that Mr Tinubu’s malapropisms are “a purple flag”, which raises questions on his cognitive capability for the presidency.

Which may be as much as Nigerians to determine, however some malapropisms invite critical authorized penalties. Round 24 November, it emerged that Chief Justice of Nigeria, Olukayode Ariwoola, attended a state banquet in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, at which he publicly indulged in what one author has described as “disgraceful and embarrassing hagiographic adoration” of a sitting state governor, whereas additionally showing to align himself with a faction of the opposition PDP led by 5 state governors who’ve given themselves the moniker “Integrity Governors”. 

Certainly, the Chief Justice went so far as referring to them by that moniker. In a scathing editorial, one nationwide newspaper mildly characterised the conduct of the Chief Justice as “unfortunate.”

In response, a spokesperson for the Chief Justice, Festus Akande, issued a press release describing the remarks credited to the Chief Justice as “barefaced falsehood.” The truth is, nonetheless, video evidence exhibits quite clearly that the one particular person indulging in barefaced falsehood on this matter is Dr Akande. 

No less than three points come up right here. First, a judiciary whose credibility is already within the doldrums suffers when falsehood turns into the mechanism by which anybody chooses to defend it or the Workplace of the CJN, as Dr Akande tried to. It could have been throughout the ballpark for him to confess the phrases that the CJN did certainly utter however clarify them away or apologise for them. If the defence of the CJN is based in falsehood, as is routine with politicians, how can we belief the Supreme Court docket or the bigger judiciary over which he presides?

Second, this example may simply have been prevented if the CJN had declined an invite that was manifestly fraught with political landmines. Having attended, he may have declined to talk. He selected neither. 

As one citizen said on Twitter: “Attending the occasion in any respect was in all probability not a really smart resolution.” The workplace of the CJN is the one within the nation entrusted solely with exercising judgement. On this event, the incumbent confirmed a profound lack of it.

Third, by his conduct, the CJN uncovered himself to a reputable cost of getting breached rule 1(5) of the Judicial Code of Conduct which prohibits judges from social relationships which might be improper “or might give rise to an look of impropriety or that will solid doubt on the power of a Judicial Officer to determine circumstances impartially.” From each case involving the PDP on the Supreme Court docket, this Chief Justice should now recuse himself or threat being requested to take action both by the events or by public opinion. That’s an untenable place for a Chief Justice in a rustic wherein almost each election invariably finally ends up earlier than the Supreme Court docket.

Now, in the course of excessive political season, we confront a judicial malapropism with slow-burning reverberations of excessive political salience. And we nonetheless have almost three extra months of campaigning but to run. 

The actual tragedy is having to harbour the thought that whereas Dino Melaye dedicated a malapropism, the Chief Justice of Nigeria might have dedicated judicial malfeasance. That may be a distinction with a distinction.

A lawyer and a trainer, Odinkalu could be reached at chidi.odinkalu@tufts.edu