OPINION: Dr. Beavens Ajiduku pens down his view on Anyim/Enenche saga.

ANYIM/ENENCHE: A PSYCHOLINGUISTIC PERSPECTIVE

The event that occured at the Glory Dome in Abuja on Sunday last, &:which later turned into a melodramatic brouhaha on social media, was quite an unfortunate one. 

Perhaps, a little peep into the psycholinguistic dimension of what transpired would make some things clearer.

To me, the lady, Anyim, sounded like an aphasic in the two instances she spoke behind the microphone 🎤.. The first instance was when she was giving the testimony, when she said she holds a BSC Degree in Law & the second instance when she said all was well between her and her "spiritual father" instead of "spiritual parents". I'm convinced that given another opportunity, she could still grapple with her use of language.

Listening to her testimony in the church, one may have noticed that the entire testimony was replete with some manifest grammatical errors (agrammatism) & malapropisms. I, initially, thought it was the huge congregation that induced some degree of fright in her. But when she later referred to her "spiritual parents "as "spiritual father*, I felt she could be suffering from Broca's aphasia. 

Broca's aphasia, is a neurological condition makes the victim to suffer some loss of language skills. Neurolinguistically speaking,  at this age of hers, brain laterlization has already taken place, therefore it would be difficult to remedy the situation. This is why even some professors of  language, Law, Political Science,et.c. still remain agrammatic despite their academic attainments. It is rather unfortunate that the condition has no known cure at the moment, except for some speech therapies that may or may not work. 

The man of God, being a medical doctor, ought to have noticed that he was, probably, dealing with an aphasic. 

For me, the reaction from the great man of God, was uncalled for. He should have, rather, invited her to a closet after the service & prayed for her. An apology has been issued already.

Although, the apology tendered may not be enough for some people, but, methinks, it is okay. Sometimes, it doesn't really matter whether the cat is black or white, so long as it catches mice. 

The lady herself has beseeched us all to bury the hatchet & look up to God who created us all with some degree of fallibility.

Dr. Ajiduku holds ph.D semantics in the University of Calabar.