A member of Parliament (pictured), who is a distinguished professor, has shocked his colleagues with the manner in which he mutilates the Queen’s English. Recently, he appalled his colleagues during a meeting of a committee when he kept saying, "He catched my attention" and "He catched my eye." The panel was grilling a senior government official. It took the intervention of a member to correct the good professor, who also lectures in a local university. "We say caught my attention not catched," a colleague told him. He apologised, admitting that English is not an African language and that no African, including himself, can claim to have absolute command.
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Still on matters language. A senator recently stormed out of a committee meeting after a bitter argument with her colleagues over the command of Kiswahili. The senator, who prefers using the language, was making a contribution when one of her colleagues interrupted her for not using a correct term. This did not go down well with her. She shot up in anger, and started telling the committee and those in attendance how she was born and brought up at the Coast – the origin of the language – and has taught the Kiswahili in several universities for years. The chair tried to intervene but the lady stormed out of the room ranting, "No one can teach me Kiswahili here."
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A Governor and MP from a county in Western Kenya nearly exchanged blows in a hotel last week. The two are said to have argued bitterly about the governor’s endorsement of his relative to take on the MP in next year’s polls. The two met in the hotel where a security meeting convened by the county commissioner was underway. According to insiders who witnessed the drama, the MP told the governor to his face that he has stolen public money which he was using to sponsor candidates to remove those who have been criticising him and his administration. The county boss took issue with the utterances and went for his neck. It took the intercession of their aides to separate them.
