why is “sentiment” such a bad word in Nigeria?
Why do Nigerians strain hard to avoid even the remotest association with the word in their quotidian discursive engagements? Well, it is obvious that many, perhaps most, Nigerians understand the word “sentiment” to mean scorn-worthy prejudice that is activated by visceral, unreasoning, primordial loyalties. That is why in Nigerian English, expressions like “religious sentiments” and “ethnic sentiments” are synonymous with what Standard English speakers would recognize as “religious bigotry” and “ethnic bigotry” or, in a word, ethnocentrism. It also explains why, sometime ago, a reader thought I was being unfair to myself by describing my point of view as a “sentiment.” In my weekly column, I had written something about readers who “shared my sentiment” on an issue and this faithful reader wrote to assure me that my position was “NOT a sentiment at all”; it was “objective,” he insisted. Problem was: it was just my personal judgment. This permeative Nigerian (mis)usage of the word “senti
