”I Encourage My Kids to Speak Well”- Grammarian Patrick Obahiagbon Talks About Fatherhood & More in Interview

Former chief of Staff to the Edo State governor, Hon. Patrick Obahiagbon popularly known for his ‘gigantic’ grammar is not new to the Nigerian populace.

In an interview with Punch, the politician and legal practitioner who has been described by Nigerians as one grammarian known for his command of the English Language and ways of usage of the vocabularies revealed that he would love his children to speak like he does, especially his youngest daughter.

The proud father of two wonderful boys and a girl also said that he developed his repertoire of ‘high-sounding’ words through extensive reading.

According to him, he doesn’t speak the way he does to mesmerize his audiences, adding that they flow naturally from the pool of words and phrases he has accumulated through a regular use of the dictionary.

His words:

”I have said it for the umpteenth time that I have never advertently set out to mystify my audience with what you have referred to as esoteric words and I neither studied Latin.

The truth is that extensive reading is my hobbyhorse and these words and phrases become part of my vocabulary repertoire to use your words. Of course, I have equally posited elsewhere that the dictionary for me is a vade mecum.

It bears reiteration that my family is already used to my idiolect and I am encouraging my kids along that path but of course you know these things cannot be decreed.

I have endeavored to encourage my children to try and cultivate the gift of the gab especially my young daughter who is exuding all the qualities of a scholar in her formative years and my pleasure will be boundless if one of them can be so motivated.”

How have you been able to combine fatherhood with being a politician?

”Combining fatherhood with active politics is not a tea party at all especially when your children are still in their impressionable age and you need to have the eyes of the mythical Argus to give you enough elbow room for regular paternalistic interventions.

But I have been blessed with a very loving and meticulous wife who has per force had to play both the role of a mother and father when I am not around. And my looming image as a martinet even when I am away from home has helped positively in steering the family along the expected trajectory.”

What does fatherhood mean to you?

”Fatherhood of course can be defined as the state of being a father which broadly means providing and caring for the legitimate needs of your family.

It means for me a willingness to provide a laudable moral, ethical and spiritual compass that will act as their bulwark in the course of their vicissitudinal peregrinations and unfoldment of their respective soul personalities.

This for me is a compelling divine responsibility and privilege to be able to care, guide and provide for soul personalities that has incarnated into this earth plane by the grand architect of the universe using you as a cosmic vehicle.”

What things prepared you for fatherhood?

The circumstance of my birth has largely played a lingering force in my preparation for fatherhood. My parents showed and still do show me (I am happy to still have both of them alive to God’s special grace) tremendous affection and love even though that did not stop them from moulding me along the “salomenian narrow path.”

This has been the model adopted in my family husbandry ceteris paribus.

What was your greatest fear before you became a father?

My greatest fear and prayers while preparing for fatherhood was for the cosmic to bless me with cosmic abundance to be able to tender after the legitimate and righteous needs of my family because it can be indeed emotionally macadamising, when you fail in your family responsibilities.
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Those who are blessed by God to discharge their fundamental family duties should be forever grateful to the Lord and pray for others to be able to so do. You really don’t want to know what other families are passing through in this country due to no fault of theirs. My heart goes to such families while I continuously thank God for His grace.

How do you discipline your children?

An admixture of advice, verbal caution, facial expression, body language and in extreme cases the use of the cane on just one or two occasions to make a very strong and long-lasting impression.

What values did you learn from your father which you passed on to your children?

My father was and still remains a very strict disciplinarian and inculcated in me early enough the value of putting my nose to the grindstone and the futility of worshiping at the shrine of mammon. Above all else, he spared no efforts in making me a God-fearing individual and I am equally striving to imbue my family with these virtues and more.

Fatherhood has brought in its wake varied lessons. One has learnt that you must communicate with each of your children individually bearing in mind their peculiar idiosyncrasies, personalities and emotional build up.

You have an onus to discover their respective nuances and adopt an apropos stratagem for each of them.

Other lessons are the imperative need to prioritise your expenditure, have a large dose of patience and be more responsible theoretically and in practical terms if you must be taken seriously in your preachments.