The dispute over the appropriateness and tone of Mediline Ogar’s statement alluding to the possible connection of certain political interests in insurgency should be placed within a sensible context. Ms. Ogar holds a strategic public office. It is an office based on public trust. The perception is crucial; this is why her utterance must be measured. For her public admonition is vital in building up the political temperature.
However, it cuts both ways. The political establishment also has to be temperate in its use of language. Here, the use of language must be temperate. For with just months to go before pivotal and perhaps game changing national elections, we must all be weary. Nigeria’s fragile democracy and the lack of a resolution of the issue of the nationalities (the national question) means that it will be ill-advised to create an atmosphere based on a state of heightened anxiety. George Orwell’s Politics and the English Language has a lot to teach our political operators about the vacuity of turning political speech and writing into “largely the defense of the indefensible.” This is why temperature raising vacuities such as “rig and toast” and “Haramites” should be avoided. For our political class and the sake of the polity let us leave the final admonition to Orwell. “The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s reach and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms…”
Our politicians should concentrate on the real issues which affect everyday life and the standard of living, present well worked out and sensibly costed programmes and move away from dogo turenchi and Vacons Shiboleth’s which only disguises insecurity. This is vital since, as Orwell pointed out, “the great enemy of clear language is insecurity”.