Thursday, June 5, 2014

RENAME THE NORTH-CENTRAL AND SOUTH-SOUTH ZONES

A compass rose showing the 4 cardinal directions (written in largest letters), the 4 ordinal directions (written in medium-sized letters) and the 8 intercardinal directions (written in smallest letters).

The naming of the six geo-political zones of the country was not done in compliance with English language syntax. ‘North-Central’ and ‘South-South’ are misnomers. This short write up is intended to highlight the error in the two names and advice the National Conference leadership and delegates to include in their final recommendations new names for the two geo-political zones affected.

The English language has four cardinal directions – North (N), East (E), South (S) and West (W), four intercardinal (or ordinal or intermediate) directions – North-East (NE), North-West (NW), South-East (SE) and South-West (SW). Between the cardinal and intercardinal directions there are eight secondary-intercardinal directions, namely, North-North-East (NNE), East-North-East (ENE), East-South-East (ESE), South-South-East (SSE), South-South-West (SSW), West-South-West (WSW), West-North-West (WNW) and North-North-West (NNW). The diagram attached of a Compass makes these sixteen directions clearer.

As can be easily noticed, ‘North-Central’ and ‘South-South’ directions are conspicuously absent. They are absent because they do not exist, except in Nigerian non-standard English coinage. Although ‘North-Central’ is in use in some parts of the United States of America, that is the only exception to the rule. ‘South-South’ is not used anywhere in the world as directional terminology except in Nigeria.  The term ‘South-South’ is commonly used with reference to any form of cooperation between two or more developing countries which are to be found mainly in the southern hemisphere of our planet. For example, there is South-south economic cooperation between Brazil and Indonesia.

In Standard English, the South-South Zone should be called the DEEP SOUTH Zone while the North-Central Zone should be called CENTRAL Zone or, as the people of the zone prefer to be called, the MIDDLE BELT Zone. I therefore request that delegates from the two affected Zones and/or the leadership of the National Conference propose a motion for the adoption of these changes of names. It is also my sincere wish that the change of names will come along with the restructuring of the country into regional governments currently being canvassed for by the SW, SS, SE and NC geo-political zones.

Written by James Pam.