Expert in English Language, Novelist and Newspaper Reporter, Chukwuemerie Anyene, has guided the burning of the use of ‘and’ in section 134 of the Nigerian Constitution, as amended, which required a Presidential candidate to have 25% votes in at least 24 States and Federal Capital Territory, without which there would be a re-run.
He wondered why Nigerians who passed the English Language in O’Level exams still found it difficult to understand ‘and’ as a coordinating conjunction used to join two things of equal grammatical rank. According to him, that aspect of the constitution stood interpreted because the use of ‘and’ in the clause had made 25% votes in 24 states independent of 25% votes in the Federal Capital Territory. He highlighted the aspect of constitutional requirements that could make two or more Presidential candidates go through a re-run.
Mr Anyene further gave a simple illustration to buttress ‘and’ used to join 24 states and FCT. The syntactic rule he gave reads: “Let’s bring it to layman’s understanding. The conjunction ‘and’ joins two things of equal grammatical rank. Example:
The teacher and the student are in the class. Notice that the teacher and the student are two independent subjects; hence, the plural verb ‘are’ is used. But in sentences like ‘The teacher, as well as the student, is in the class’ the two conjunctions are of unequal grammatical rank (as well as, being a subordinating conjunction). _Unlike ‘and,’ two subjects joined with ‘as well as’ are considered as one. That is why the singular verb ‘is’ is used,” he stated.
The literary pundit further established that a sentence could only be compound in structure whenever ‘and’ or coordinating conjunction was used. “Any sentence with any conjunction apart from ‘and’ or coordinating conjunction is complex. The difference between compound sentence and complex sentence is that whereas the former joins two simple sentences, the latter has one simple sentence joined to a dependent clause,” he analysed.
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