Please mind your language
M. O. ENE
Saturday, January 1, 2011
On
4th January, 1967, in
Aburi, Ghana, Colonel Yakubu Gowon made good-natured attempts to lighten what
was a very serious situation in a collapsing country. The more matured and
confident Colonel Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, then Military Governor of Eastern
Region and whose people were massacred mercilessly in a pogrom, did not find
Gowon’s naïve attempts funny. Gowon persisted and took a stab at a particularly,
poor-taste joke. Odumegwu-Ojukwu retorted: “We are obviously not talking the
same language.”
It is becoming obvious that Nigerian media practitioners are bent on producing a
Nigerian English, just as Microsoft Word anticipates. Nothing else explains the
continued use of wrong terms when writing about the Igbo of Southeastern
Nigeria, a part of Biafra and present part of Nigeria I call “Aladimma”—just as
we have Arewa, Kanem-Bornu, Middle-Belt, Niger-Delta, and Oduduwa.
For many years after the war, the Nigerian media managers succumbed to puerile
attempts at erasing the term “Biafra” from lexicon because, according to Gowon,
“There was no Biafra”! Indeed, there was Biafra: an internationally recognized
country that came decades before its time. It started with changing the Bight of
Biafra to the Bight of Bonny and the persecution of the press for using the
term. When Biafra appeared anywhere, it was in quotes, with “defunct” and
“so-called” repeated needlessly.
The media reviled Biafran commanders as “rebels” “ex-this,” and “ex-that”; and
they depicted Biafra’s head of state as “warlord.” They continued after he
returned from exile in Côte d’Ivoire. Recently, with the downturn in the health
of now 77-year-old Odumegwu-Ojukwu, the term “warlord” regained currency.
According to Reader’s Digest “Universal Dictionary” and several online sources,
the term means “a
military commander exercising civil power in a region, whether in nominal
allegiance to the national
government
or in defiance of it.”
It is not necessary to rehash the history of
Republic of Biafra (1967-1970). Suffice it to say that the people’s assembly
mandated Odumegwu-Ojukwu to declare
the Republic of Biafra. He became the Head of State and Commander-in-Chief of
Biafran Armed Forces. General Odumegwu-Ojukwu neither declared war on Nigeria
nor did he “lord” a region for the Lagos-based government of General Gowon.
If the word “warlord” must be thrown around, it should apply to Nigerian
military commanders who had only “nominal allegiance” to Gowon’s government.
Brigadier Benjamin (Black Scorpion) Adekunle was the most notorious. The
weird warlord of Port Harcourt told the international media in September 1968:
“I
want to see no Red Cross, no Caritas, no World Council of Churches, no Pope, no
missionary and no U.N. delegation. I want to prevent even one Ibo (sic) having
even one thing to eat before their capitulation. :::: We shoot at everything
that moves. :::: Then we shoot at everything, even things that don’t move.”
General Odumegwu-Ojukwu was never a warlord; he is not an “ex-warlord,”
“Nigerian ex-warlord,” or, the crassest, “ex-Biafran warlord.” Biafra was a
better
organized independent country than the present confusion called country. With 20
provinces and decent international recognition of UN-seated countries, Biafra
achieved a lot with virtually nothing than Nigeria with billions of oil money.
Biafra was a century before its time.
So how do we address the hero of Biafran revolution? Simple: He said so himself:
“Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu. It is important to note the use of his
father’s middle and last names, hyphenated, not just “Ojukwu. ” He also abhors
the use of non-Igbo title “Chief” (if only that it rhymes with ‘thief’!) Yes, he
is Dim Umudim, Ikemba Nnewi, Dikedioramma Ndiigbo, and Ezeigbo
Gburugburu. Adding “self-acclaimed” to anyone’s title is redundant: In Igbo
culture, whatever title one takes, that’s what he is called; what one is called,
to that he answers. [“Nke onye chiri, ya zere; nke a na-etu onye, ya zaa.”]
Still on language, the
Igbo people have stated that they are not
Ebo, Eboe, Ibo, or any English-derived plural variant. The use of any other
spelling purporting to refer to the Igbo people and their language is an
unacceptable corruption of the word “IGBO.” There is no Nigerian language that
forms plurals with the letter “s.” It is therefore advisable to use “IGBO” for
the people and for the language in both singular and plural contexts. The use of
“Igbos” is as grammatically incorrect
as the use of “Englishs”!
Those who cannot resist the urge to s-pluralize “the Igbo” (people) should use
“Ndiigbo.” “Ndi” (meaning “people of…”) is the appropriate Igbo lexical
tag for plural formation. “Ndiigbo” is not an adjective; it is a plural noun
meaning “the Igbo people.” Only “Igbo” functions both as a noun and as an
adjective. There should be no such thing as “Ndiigbo person” or “Ndiigbo issue,”
or “Ndiigbo-speaking person.” For the avoidance of doubt, especially for those
who have not grasped the nuances of Igbo language, it is advisable to use “Igbo”
throughout, as done in other Nigerian languages: Birom, Edo, Efik, Fulani, Gwari,
Hausa, Ibibio, Igala, Izon, Nupe, Yoruba, etc.