Here is something that might surprise you: the people most likely to carry certain English errors for years without ever being corrected are not those with limited education. They are the educated ones.
The reason is straightforward. When a person has built a reputation for speaking well, those around them rarely feel comfortable pointing out their mistakes. Teachers let things slide, colleagues assume they meant to say it that way, and the errors quietly become habits, polished into the speech of someone who, by every other measure, communicates very well indeed.
This post is not about shaming anyone. It is about identifying patterns that are so widespread in Nigerian English that they have begun to feel correct, even to people who know better. If any of these feel familiar, that is not a reflection of your intelligence; it is simply a reflection of the environment in which you learnt and practised the language.
The good news is that every one of them is correctable.
1. Using ‘Stress’ When You Mean ‘Emphasis’
You will hear this in offices, classrooms, and boardrooms across Nigeria: ‘Let me stress the importance of this point.’ In most cases, the speaker means they want to emphasise or underline that point, not create anxiety around it. While ‘stress’ and ’emphasis’ do share some overlap in usage, ‘stress’ in formal English carries a stronger connotation of pressure and strain, and using it repeatedly where ’emphasise’ is more precise signals a vocabulary gap to a trained ear.
Use ’emphasise’ when drawing attention to something important, and reserve ‘stress’ for contexts where pressure or tension is genuinely part of the meaning.
2. Saying ‘I Am Coming’ When You Are Leaving
This is perhaps the most well-known feature of Nigerian English, and it crosses educational levels entirely. When a Nigerian says ‘I am coming’ as they walk out of a room, they mean ‘I will be back shortly.’ In Standard British English, however, ‘I am coming’ means you are moving towards the person speaking, not away from them. The correct phrase, when leaving temporarily, is ‘I will be back’ or ‘I will be right back.’
This is a direct transfer from several Nigerian languages in which a single word or phrase covers both directions of movement depending on context. It makes perfect sense within that framework, but in a formal or international setting, it creates genuine confusion.
3. Misusing ‘Discuss’ Without a Direct Object
A very common construction in Nigerian English is ‘Let us discuss about the matter.’ In Standard English, ‘discuss’ is a transitive verb that already implies talking about something, so adding ‘about’ after it is redundant. The correct form is simply ‘Let us discuss the matter.’ Similarly, ‘We need to discuss about your performance’ should be ‘We need to discuss your performance.’ This error appears frequently in professional correspondence and formal speech, where it can undermine an otherwise polished impression.
4. Confusing ‘Borrow’ and ‘Lend’
These two words are regularly swapped in Nigerian English, and the confusion is so widespread that it has become largely invisible to most speakers. ‘Borrow’ means to take something temporarily with the intention of returning it; ‘lend’ means to give something temporarily with the expectation of getting it back. The direction of the transaction is the key distinction.
So ‘Please borrow me your pen’ is incorrect; the correct form is ‘Please lend me your pen.’ You borrow from someone; you lend to someone. The error, again, traces back to several Nigerian languages in which a single word covers both directions of exchange, but in formal English the two must be kept separate.
5. Using ‘Senior’ and ‘Junior’ as General Honorifics
In Nigeria, it is entirely normal to refer to a slightly older colleague or acquaintance as ‘senior’ or to address them directly as ‘Senior Emeka’ or ‘Senior Aisha.’ This is a warm and culturally meaningful practice rooted in local tradition. However, in formal international or corporate English, ‘senior’ is an adjective that describes professional rank or relative age in a very specific context, not a title of address. Using it as a general honorific in formal writing or in professional settings outside Nigeria can read as unusual to an international audience, and it is worth being aware of when the context demands a different approach.
6. Saying ‘I Want to Use the Toilet’ in Formal Settings
In British English, particularly in formal and professional environments, the more commonly accepted phrasing is ‘May I be excused?’ or ‘Could you point me to the bathroom?’ or simply ‘Where are the facilities, please?’ Announcing specifically that you want to ‘use the toilet’ is considered blunt in formal usage, where indirectness around bodily functions is culturally preferred. This is a subtle distinction, but subtlety is precisely what separates good English from excellent English.
7. Using ‘Revert’ to Mean ‘Reply’
This is one of the most widespread errors in Nigerian professional writing, and it has embedded itself so thoroughly in corporate communication that many people are genuinely unaware it is an error. ‘Please revert to me’ does not mean ‘please reply to me’ in Standard English. To revert means to return to a previous state or condition; it is not a synonym for responding to a message. The correct word in almost every professional context where people use ‘revert’ is ‘respond’ or ‘reply’: ‘Please respond at your earliest convenience’, ‘I look forward to your reply.’
8. Writing ‘Alot’ as One Word
This is brief but worth stating clearly: ‘a lot’ is always two words. Always. ‘Alot’ is not a word in Standard English, in any variety. Despite appearing in countless professional emails and formal documents written by highly educated people, it remains an error, and one that spell checkers do not always catch because some systems have become accustomed to it. If you have been writing ‘alot’ as one word, the correction is simple and immediate.
Conclusion
None of these errors diminish the intelligence or capability of the people who make them. They are the natural result of learning a language in an environment that has developed its own rich and legitimate variety of English, one that works beautifully within its own context but sometimes diverges from the standard forms expected in international and formal settings.
Being aware of these patterns is not about abandoning Nigerian languages or pretending that the local variety is inferior; it is about having the range to code-switch confidently and present yourself with precision in any context you choose.
That range is exactly what excellent communication training builds.
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