Nah, I wont call it a dumb thread. Nigerians should be able to speak good English because it's our lingua franca, but we just go about shooting bullets and can never be bothered.

It's not about speaking "FONNE" o! That will be trying to form, especially when you don't have it naturally.

Secondly, mother tongue; yes it does have a great influence on our pronunciation skills, especially when you happen to grow up in your own local environment (although some pesin no they try at all!)

We may not be able to speak Fonne and we may have the mother tongue interference, but for Cripes sakes why can't we make an effort to pronounce words correctly and construct better sentences? That's why you have a dictionary, isn't it? it helps you with pronunciation as well! Some of our parents and Fore-fathers spoke better English than we do these days. I concur with an earlier replier who said it's non-cha-lance and ignorance on our part. like some persons will pronounce "heard" as "Hiard" (Haba!)
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I once listened to a Mechanical Engineering graduate (BSC) on who wants to be millionaire who didn't know what "Family Tree" was! Very shameful if you ask me. Even Frank felt like beating the guy up! Who doesn't like to be around Guys and ladies that speak good English and pronounce words well? I'm sure we are usually impressed by Frank Idoho and other Nigerians with good command of English when we see them on T.V.

It's not to speak big big grammar that is difficult to understand even by the speaker o!, but to be able to pronounce, construct correctly and know the meaning of the the little you know how to speak. Finish!