Lade Bonuola: Mr. Caught Out

“He was more concerned with  style, and he knew it well enough to get universities using his column to teach news writing and effective use of English in other subjects.”

Lade Bonuola came to visit the other day, the first time he would come over since he left the feature editorship of Daily Times for the obscure job as te deputy to the editor of spear magazine. He is an inscrutable fellow, with a permanent tense and eager face shrouded in thicking sideburns which partially hide his traditional Yoruba marks. His Ladbone column – combining the Lad of Lade with the Bon of Bonuola, adding an eto the bon to get the bone sound – took an informed look at the profession of journalism in Nigeria. His comments usually didn’t deal with the gut problems of journalism as such, he seemed to want to ensure that the language used in newspaper writing was not massacred by carelessness. He was more concerned with style, and he knew it well enough to get universities using his column to teach news writing and effective use of English in other subjects. He did it carefully, reading all the newspapers in Nigeria and snapping at whichever he thought was running afoul of good English usage, clarity and order of importance in paragraph arrangement in a news story.

Lade Bonuola was not always right. He was conservative and appeared a little over-zealous in his application of writing rules. But he was often more right than wrong. And in the few times that he was caught with his pants and he was so told, Bonuola looked crestfallen. He was a very sensitive person, who didn’t seem to possess the ability to take what he gave in his weekly Ladbone column which appeared in the Sunday Times. When he criticized the National Concord on how the paper carried the N2.8 billion story at the time it first broke, the paper’s editor felt injured and rightly so and decided to snap Bonuola in her Thinking Corner. To the little admonition, Bonuola sent Doyin Aboaba a long letter. Actually, the Ladbone column had declined in erudition and precision since Bonuola became the Times Feature Editor. The job of keeping page seven going was back-breaking and it wasn’t easy to combine with the reading of all the papers in Nigeria for the purpose of writing informed criticism. Whatever happened to the quality of the Ladbone columns were not so bad that they could take away the fact that the man and his column were exemplary.

©Sunday Concord, September 7, 1980

Playing Catch Up on Caught Out

‘Like’ and ‘As’, ‘The President’ and ‘Mr. President’

In newspapers and on radio and television, in letters and in conservations, Nigerians have begun to replace “as” with “like” in certain constructions. “Like I was telling you …” is the commonest example. “Like I said …” and so on. In each of these instances the correct is “As I was saying or I was telling you.”

Another common error is the way people refer to President Shagari since the time that he said he would not like to be addressed as “Your Excellency.” Instead of saying the President, announcers on the Nigeria television often say “Mr. President has announced …” It should sound “The President has announced …” Instances in which “Mr. President” is appropriate include when sending him a letter – Dear Mr. President; Mr. President, when addressing him. For the sake of usage, extra care is needed in distinguishing between “Like” and “As”, “The President” and “Mr. President.”

©Sunday Concord, September 14, 1980
(Pp.86-87)