The president’s speech: evident disharmony between theory and empirical data

Listening to the President’s Independence speech, I was gravely seized by the gross burden of mental pain. This is not because the speech was not a product of proficient rendition by the paid writer, nor because of the speech's defective elocution by the presenter, it is because of how the contents of the speech create an antithesis of the real. It is because of how the speech writer achieves a dramatic disharmony between written texts and fieldwork experiences.

Almost all the contents of the speech contradict Nigerians’ practical experiences over the past years. You keep wondering why the speech writer determinedly misrepresents and consciously distorts. No need ex-raying how each sentence distorts our collective and individual experiences over these years. Just read for yourself and answer the question. No time to do the entire exercise here.

But one thing is certain: every Nigerian Independence day is always foreshadowed by a certain misadventure that signals an ailing nation. This year’s own was preceded by a gruesome murder of an entire family in Jos, Plateau State. Yet it did not receive any mention by the president in the national broadcast. Some may argue that the life of a single family may not deserve mention in an all-important business as the Independence broadcast but the fact is that the life of a single individual is as important as the life of all human in a nation. Again given that this incidence just happened a day or two before Independence, the freshness of memory should have saved their plight from the misanthropic insensitivity of collective condemnation seen in the speech. Again, the manner of the murder which is an abrupt annihilation, a closure to the family tree, which included a two year old child, you cannot help but give in to an unbridled flow of tears.

Take it or leave it, the president’s last sentence in the speech which reads thus “I want to assure you that as President, I will continue to work tirelessly to promote, protect and preserve what really matters: a united, peaceful, prosperous and secure Nigeria, where all, irrespective of background, can aspire to succeed” is an encapsulation of the entire speech which as I strongly argued opposes the empirical data of his actions as we see it happening everyday. Unless those reading this are not living in Nigeria.