PMB, GEJ & OUK: Issues miscellaneous

EBERE WABARA

[email protected] 08055001948

I thank all those who appreciated my inter­vention under focus and promise them that no moppet in the clone of Jonathan apologist can stop PMB in the rediscovery, redemp­tion and restoration of Nigeria after PDP’s unprecedented fiscal bazaar and financial restlessness/restiveness/recklessness inad­vertently (no pun intended) supervised by former president GEJ!

Those who are rabidly against apportion­ment of blame beg the question, which ex­plains our national retrogression. In the same breath, those who allege that OUK has lately been “attacking” GEJ and backing PMB miss the point because on issues of principle, OUK does not prevaricate. In other matters, he could, going by human predilection, pos­sibly engage in gobbledygook.

After the series of multimedia feedback I got to the first contribution on the above subject, I decided I will no longer welcome vexatious responses, no matter how provoc­ative the acerbic interjection is. A few sec­onds later, the venomous mail below came in. Inasmuch as I need to keep to my word, I must not fail in my bounden duty this last time round hence this ultimate vacillation.

Now the unedited vitriolic in all its uncouth­ness: Kelechi Amasike <kelechiamasike@ gmail.com>

To [email protected]

Jun 13 at 1:19 PM

“Just attempted to read your article. (sic)

Couldn’t get myself beyond the first three paragraphs before dashing off to the rest­room to puke. (sic) Yes to throw up. Seri­ously. (sic) Being candid here. (sic)

Just a piece of dripping hot mess. (sic)

Atrociously disgusting n obnoxious. (sic)

And yes here u got my name and email address not done (sic) anonymous num­bers that you were bleating about in your article.

Your kind just rile (sic) me up.

Firstly (sic) what was all that struggle with vocabulary about?

KISS(keep it simple stupid) mustn’t have been a mandatory course you took in one of your journalism classes?

Next thing you know your (sic) are excus­ing those that couldn’t keep up with your inconsequential and unimpressive dogun turenci (sic).

Just reminded me of some insecure “se­niors” at Govt (sic) College Umuahia who read (sic) dictionaries during night preps and struggled to regale us during cafeteria hours.

Complete childishness from an insecure character”

…Columnist’s reply

As my late senior colleague, Andy Ak­porugo, used to say, his column was not for everyone—only for those who had the cerebral competency and capacity to grasp his scholastic presentations. May your soul continue to rest in peace. I rec­ollect you and your daily glass of Cognac at the passage on our Agidingbi, Ikeja, Daily Times of yore premises. We are striving to sustain your legacy of media professionalism rooted in intellectuality.

Issuing from the above, it is obvious I would have preferred people who fell into Oga Andy’s prescription to access my column—not marginally literate and vi­cious fellows like one Kelechi Amasike who sent the above mail. If anyone does not make sense out of my articles, it is clear that there would be intellectual limi­tations for which I should not be blamed.

Over the years, many people had com­plained of my verbosity, verbiage and needless demonstrative intellectualism. On innumerable occasions here and else­where, I have had to apologize for subject­ing most of my readers to mental torture, academic terrorism and vaulting display of English language craftsmanship, to paraphrase the complainants who also ac­cuse me of intellectual haughtiness.

Let me reiterate that my writings are not pieces of showmanship! It had been my way of writing from my days as a proof­reader in the Daily Times of yesteryear. It falls under what we call stylistics in com­munication. At the level I have attained in classical and developmental journal­ism, I cannot be studying dictionaries just before or during writing as insinuated by half-literate and scurrilous Amasike. If his seniors at Govt. College, Umuahia, did that I wish them well, but they will not go far with such self-deception.

I hardly refer to the dictionary or any reference book when writing my columns because I know what I want to communi­cate from my overflowing pool of ideas and words, phrases and idiomatic expres­sions built up over the years through vo­racious and systematic reading, critical development of the mind, participation in colloquia, symposia, local and inter­national seminars and workshops, listen­ing to global good speakers, critique and comparative analyses of other people’s works and mine and conferencing regu­larly with like-minds.

I must underscore the point that I like etymological architecture in the best of its traditions hence at my free time—not when I am writing my columns here and for other newspapers amid time constraint—I research. I study dictionaries, other reference materials like thesauri, books on quotations and other standard publications alongside my bibles, magazines and newspapers. Right now, I have a collection of 15 gifted books from Baba Bayo Oguntunase which I am yet to read months after receiving them because of my multifarious engagements.

As a bibliophile and consummate journalist, when I write the Amasikes get confounded and rashly conclude that I keep dictionaries by my side while writing! My writing will not flow if I do that and it will be drudgery instead of fun.

Those who doubt me can isolate me in a mu­tually agreed environment and just give me a desk, a chair and a functional laptop with cur­rent full options, including a sound-proof and smoke-free generator with PHCN connection as a standby facility!

We cannot have only soundly educated peo­ple reading this column. There must be vulgar and poorly educated characters like the Ama­sikes of this world who, out of their own edu­cational limitations, make institutional mock­ery of products of respected and celebrated Government College, Umuahia.

Juvenile Amasike ignorantly thinks I “strug­gle with vocabulary”. I sympathize with this bloke because, to him, my verbose entries are a struggle! It is a passion that comes out in minutes with great joy, satisfaction and read­ership accomplishment. If I had not resolved to turn a new leaf based on dignified interven­tions, I would have unleashed my lexical ar­senal on this so-called Amasike, who, I wish, should not distract me by reading my columns and sending to me illiterate, uncivilized and intemperate mail.

I apologize to dispassionate readers of this column who have issues with some of my pro­fessorial terminologies as I promise to “strug­gle” and tone them down like the fallen Iroko, inimitable Chinua Achebe!