This is a great year for a former Military Governor of Lagos State, Brigadier General Raji Rasaki (retd). It is also a beautiful month for him. If he had been on trial for decades for his popular expression, ‘Who build this gada?’, he may have now been discharged and acquitted. Why? It is not a question of any dictionary endorsing ‘gada’. But, about three decades after Rasaki made the statement, it has been found out that he might not be wrong because there is actually an English word very close to ‘gada’.

The discovery is a byproduct of a post by financial expert and Facebook catalyst, Ayo Ojeniyi, who, a few days ago, brought back to memory the Raji Rasaki’s ‘goof’. While many commentators were eager to lampoon the soldier as usual, a dissenting voice boomed in his defence. That is the voice of Nasir Mohammed, who observed that Rasaki was, after all, not really wrong.

He noted, “With all due respect, I like to state that there’s no such as ill-educated General in the military. Rather, he was misconstrued or, put simply, the journalists were not familiar with the term GIRDER he pronounced as gada. I checked the definition and it is as follows

:a horizontal main structural member (as in a building or bridge) that supports vertical loads and that consists of a single piece or of more than one piece bound together.

You may wish to check it yourself in any dictionary. Furthermore, the Hausa people call it gada because they heard it from the British colonialists calling it simply as gada (girder) rather than bridge during construction before independence.”

I looked up the word in the Cambridge Dictionary: a long, thick piece of metal or concrete, etc. that supports a roof, floor, bridge, or other large structure.

Scholar and writer, Rotimi Fashakin, also noted, “Please check the word ‘girder’ in the dictionary. You will discover that it is synonymous with a bridge. ‘Gada’, in Yoruba language, is a bridge. Over time, many people have been made to believe that the man was referring to the Yoruba rendition of bridge.

You need to understand that the military guys are as educated as any of us, if not more.

Many of them, like Muhammadu Buhari, were educated in the UK and the US where English language is primarily used!”

The thrust of our lesson today is to, therefore, note that there are some terms that may be popularly regarded as being erroneous or non-existing but that may be legitimate English expressions. Of course, one cannot be too sure whether or not Rasaki used the word ignorantly or he had ‘girder’ in mind as a synonym for ‘bridge’. Also, based on the definition of ‘girder’, it is clear that it cannot always replace ‘bridge’. What is most important now is for us to absolve him since the word is valid in English, just as we should note that we can boldly use the term whenever we feel we could.

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There is, however, a major issue with the way Rasaki pronounced the word, which is the way many of us also do it. The pair of vowels in girder – ir and er – should not be pronounced as /a/, not as the type we have in gag, fat, dam and dash. What we have in the first syllable is not the open A (/a/) sound. It is the low, longer sound you have in words such as germ, skirt and shirt.

On the other hand, in ‘der’, you have the shorter versions as in mattER, hampER and howevER. I thus want you to check and practise the pronunciation of ‘girder’. Your phone is readily there to help!

Interestingly, there are some grammatical constructions that, like gada/girder, seem so odd that some of us believe they are wrong; yet, they are correct and anything contrary would be wrong. This particularly applies to the subjunctive mood:

It is high time you go. (Wrong)

It is high time you went. (Correct)

I recommend she comes tomorrow. (Wrong)

I recommend she come tomorrow. (Correct)

Also, don’t be surprised to know that these words exist in English: laugher (someone who laughs), cheater, abuser and kisser!

Laugher and cheater are North American English.