This question of amorality could be overblown, considerably. But a critical, and yet less serious appraisal, reveals that words like swagger become amoral only because they have mass appeal. This mass, presumably, consist of the lot, like me, who have not ascertained the meaning of the word, but use it nonetheless. The use of the word, therefore, becomes necessary because it has an assumed meaning, and this meaning blurs other alternatives, especially because the alternatives are unknown.

Could we consider that the nature of the use of ‘swagger’ is the nature of the use of ‘vote’ also? Now, this could be preposterous, but I would consider it nonetheless. When vote is used, there is usually no general ‘ignorance’ as to what it means. Yet, my concern is that often, the act of voting is considered as the act of being responsible. I believe that there are instances where voting is not an expression of responsibility – it is a question of trust. It is a question of whether Nigerians, for instance, trust PDP, CPC, ACN, and whatnot. So, here, trust becomes more cogent – weighty, truthful – than responsibility, and if I am forgiven, trust becomes more cogent than an expression of rights.

Again, we find that it was not really a question of rights in the final analysis for Cote d’Ivoire – agreed, they had exercised their rights, as Nigerians are doing, but rights are not as important as the expression of trust in Gbagbo. For with his emergence as a dictator, he stripped himself off that trust and thereafter began to violate their rights, having nothing of them in himself.
The popularity of the word ‘vote’ and the popularity of the art of voting, is, hopefully, a promise that those who use it would stop to ponder on the purport of their act.

Hasn’t Facebook also become something like Terry G and T.I’s swagger? There are those whose friendship is purely virtual – meaning they would never meet their Facebook friends, ever, or that even if they meet they would make casual talk, the kind of talk that would never happen on Facebook. This means that Facebook’s definition of friendship is certainly changing the way we previously considered friendship. And Twitter too – hasn’t the network conferred new meaning on ‘tweet?’ Such that Tolu Ogunlesi notes in his profile, interestingly, that ‘retweeting’ does not mean ‘endorsements.’

What I am saying is that there is a global swagger revolution – if swagger is used as a synonym for all the fashionable changes that has happened to our lexicon, our use of words, and its impact on our lives.

- Emmanuel Iduma