My attention was drawn to President Jonathan’s goodwill message to Nigerians on Christmas. Having read many speeches from the President of Nigeria, I am always certain that there would be grammatical and other kinds of errors in his speeches. Indeed, I have stopped bothering about it. But when I read his present speech, I had to comment, initially for the benefit of my friends.

The responses to my comment promoted me to further analyze that speech. (Before you go further, remember that anybody can make a mistake. It is a matter of degree; but the office of the President of Nigeria should not make the same type of mistake that an individual like me could make). The funny thing is that I am actually familiar with how the presidency works or should work. There are layers of personnel to ensure that anything coming from the President, directly in his name, reflects the best the country is capable of. That is supposed to be the general state of affair and everybody in the presidency understands and works towards that. The office of the President would therefore have the best secretaries and other support staff working in a structure where they are positioned to detect errors and correct them before the matter gets out.

For instance, it is a serious problem to submit a document to the President for his signature, where such a document has an error in it. We refer to documents signed by the President as documents that are watertight and perfect. They leave no room for typos or other problems. That is why a document bearing directly the name of the President would go through several checks and reviews before publication.

Note that this was not a speech delivered on behalf of the President by an aide. It is not a thing by a press rep. It is not a thing by his advisers. It is directly in the name of the President. So, efforts should have been expended to ensure that it met the highest standards. If they were not sure of that standard or they lack the time and resources to ensure the highest standards, they could have had the speech given on behalf of the President by some other official.

What I think happened was that they allowed a low grade, low talent (but highly paid) connected political player’s relative to man the President’s Facebook account. They forgot that even though it was Facebook, that was the President directly communicating with the world.

Some people naively think that this is just about grammatical error. They are satisfied that he even bothered to greet them on Christmas. But, rather, this matter reflects failure at several levels. It is failure to understand the use and significance of the social media in modern governance. It is failure to understand the people and the audience the President is trying to reach. It is a failure to select the right officials based on competence rather than political patronage. It is simply a huge failure to lead the country with any sense of modernity.

A few days ago, President Putin of Russia had a meet-the-press session attended by 3,000 press people. Putin communicated with the world with the latest and best technology that exists. He communicated like a pro. But here, the President of the most populous black nation in the world where 65% of the population comprises of people under age 30 could not even send a simple message on Facebook without so many basic errors.

Now, I used this simple issue to test Nigerians. I wanted to see how many of the youth would understand what is in issue here. Many do not understand that if you don’t speak any language of your choice in the correct grammatical format, that would cause you to say the opposite of what you meant to say. Now, may we examine in some specific details the statement by the President of Nigeria, as follows: (I placed my comments as Notes after the first four paragraphs). PRESIDENT JONATHAN’S SPEECH: FIRST PARAGRAPH: As the world marks the birth of Jesus Christ, let me, on behalf of myself, my family and the Federal Government, extend the good tidings of peace, progress and joy to every home throughout our beloved country Nigeria.

Note: This paragraph has the errors such as: (1) The world does not mark the birth of Jesus Christ, really. Only Christians do that. This is because the word “marks”, as used in this first paragraph means: “a festival to mark an anniversary: celebrate, observe, recognize, acknowledge, keep, honor, solemnize, pay tribute to, salute, commemorate, remember, memorialize.” Only Christians do that for the birth of “Jesus Christ”. Also, there is a difference in connotation between “Jesus of Nazareth” and “Jesus Christ”. Jesus of Nazareth is a historical figure that everybody agrees was born, lived and was killed in the region of Judea about 2000 years ago. The Jews and Muslims and everyone else really call him “Jesus of Nazareth”, but they do not accept that he is “Christ” the Messiah. So the world could not really “mark” the birth of “Jesus Christ”, any more than it would be correct to say “the world marks the birth of Mohammed”. (2) The use of the phrase, “on behalf of myself” is questionable on grounds of appropriateness. If you must add “myself” on the list of people the President was speaking for, that should be the last on the list. (3) The phrase, “the Federal Government”, is incomplete and ambiguous. While acceptable in some clear contexts, it is ambiguous to someone who might not automatically know that Jonathan is the President of Nigeria. So, that phrase ought to have been “Federal Government of Nigeria” or anything else that specifies the country in question. This is particularly so because the phrase is being used for the first time in the speech. It is true that he subsequently added in the same paragraph the word “Nigeria”. But that does not cure the error. (4) The last phrase in that paragraph, “our beloved country Nigeria” is incorrectly written. There ought to be a comma between “country” and “Nigeria”. The funny thing is that if the writer had used the readily available spell checker on his or her computer, many of these errors would have been highlighted and taken out. So, how could our officials be so lazy and daft?

SECOND PARAGRAPH: Christmas is a time of joyous family gatherings and as President, I see every Nigerian as a member of my family and I urge us all to retain the unique sense of brotherly love that this season evokes beyond the Yuletide period.

Note: (1) This paragraph is mostly meaningless. The President’s attempt to define Christmas only as “a time for joyous family gatherings” does not reflect an intelligible articulation of the purpose of Christmas. In fact, religious scholars do not believe that the central connotation of Christmas involves family gatherings, as there is no such religious obligation for families to gather. Of course, he could have avoided this ambiguity by indicating that this is his own understanding of the meaning of Christmas. (2) Also the use of the definite article “a” before “time” does not reflect the best practice. (3) Similarly, there ought to be the definite article “the” before the word “President” in that paragraph. (4) The most disturbing error in the second paragraph of the speech has to do with the last seven words in that paragraph, “this season evokes beyond the Yuletide period”. The problems here are: (a) What is the “season” mentioned here? That is Christmas season. (b) What is the “Yuletide period” mentioned here? That is Christmas period. So, that statement really says something like this: “This Christmas season evokes beyond the Christmas period”. You can see immediately the dumbness of such statement. It is a lazy statement by a lazy writer. And, by the way, what is the meaning of the word “Yuletide”? It is defined by Wikipedia as: “Yule or Yuletide (“Yule time”) is a Pagan religious festival observed by the historical Germanic peoples, later being absorbed into and equated with the Christian festival of Christmas.” The English Dictionary defined it as “Archaic way of saying “Christmas””. Now why would this writer use such term, really?

THIRD PARAGRAPH: While we will surely mark this holiday in our different ways and according to our established traditions, it is my desire that we all celebrate Christmas with some minimum comforts and my team and I have long prepared for this by working to improve our infrastructure especially those that most serve us during this season.

Note: This paragraph, like all other paragraphs in the speech, contains at least four errors. I don’t need to mention them here, except to point out the most bizarre of the errors. That has to do with the phrase: “it is my desire that we all celebrate Christmas with some minimum comfort...” What does the President mean to say here? Is he urging Nigerians to show restraint in their consumption during the period, which might make sense, or does he really mean that Nigerians should be minimally comfortable during the period? (If Nigerians don’t have electricity during the period, yes, that would be “minimum comfort” for them). It is totally bizarre for such ambiguity and confusion to emanate from a simple statement of goodwill from the President of Nigeria. I will not bother to list the errors in the remaining paragraphs. Those are even too disturbing for anyone to bother to point them out. It is easier to point out the correct statements here than to point out the errors because only about five sentences in the entire speech are correct grammatically and otherwise. And most of the factual assertions in the speech are false and most statements of opinion in it are illogical.

FOURTH PARAGRAPH: Knowing that this period is the peak period for cross country travels amongst our people, this administration has fast tracked the repair and reconstruction of artery roads nationwide. We have also ensured that the nightmare our citizens suffered at fuel stations during periods like this is put behind us. For the second year in a row, train services have continued to run from the Lagos Terminus all the way to The hinterlands of the North. This year, we also introduced cargo and haulage train services from the Lagos Port to up country locations.

FIFTH PARAGRAPH: With the Enugu airport now handling international flights, more of our people can fly directly to their localities resulting in reduced pressure on our roads. SIXTH PARAGRAPH: Our policies to spur local production of staples such as rice and wheat are bearing fruits as evidenced by the 2013 Global Hunger Index. SEVENTH PARAGRAPH: Although I will not depend on statistics until every Nigerian has enough to eat at all times and in every season, the report is salutary and only galvanizes us to further action. EIGHTH PARAGRAPH: I have also personally monitored government’s fiscal effort which we ensured were tightened for the purpose of avoiding or severely reducing the seasonal inflationary trends on consumer goods around this time of the year with the attendant result that inflation is at single digit rate. NINETH PARAGRAPH: These steps have been undertaken because of my belief that every good and great thing is possible in our country if we desire to achieve it. TENTH PARAGRAPH: So, as we all celebrate with friends and family, I say from me to you, Merry Christmas and may the joys of the season extend from our individual homes to those of our neighbors and neighboring communities irrespective of religion and region. GEJ

•Emeka Ugwuonye, Esquire, lawyer and activist, wrote from Lagos. Photo shows President Goodluck Jonathan.

Update news