An associate professor with the
Kennesaw State University in the United States, Prof. Farooq Adamu Kperogi, has
declared that the statement signed by President Muhammadu Buhari on June 6th
announcing the change in Democracy Day and conferring honour on the late Chief
MKO Abiola will score “F” failure if graded by a WAEC examiner.
Farooq, in an article for Daily
Trust titled ‘Nigerian Words and Expressions that are Untranslatable into
English’ stated that the presidential statement’s “mortifying grammatical
howlers” almost derailed him from writing on the chosen topic for his weekly
“Politics of Grammar” column.
The professor of Journalism &
Emerging Media wrote, “I’d planned to write this article last week, but the
egregiousness of the grammatical transgressions in President Muhammadu Buhari’s
Democracy Day speech was too much to ignore. I was almost derailed again by the
mortifying grammatical howlers in the president’s June 6 press statement that,
among other things, announced June 12 as Nigeria’s new Democracy Day.
From indiscriminate
capitalization, to incompetent use of articles, to inelegant, error-ridden
phraseology, to misuse of words such as “distract” for “detract,” and basic
proofreading errors, the letter was disappointingly subpar. It would get an “F”
if a WAEC examiner in English were to grade it. We wail with distress and in
national self-pity every year over mass failure in English in school
certificate exams, but our president’s official speeches and letters can’t pass
muster with WAEC examiners in English. What message does that send to our
secondary school students? Well, that’s not my preoccupation for now.”
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Prof. abeg leave Buhari him no finish any of him schooling then how do you expect correct or good English words from him.
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