A CRITICAL STUDY OF HATE SPEECH CONSTRUCTS IN NIGERIA’S 2023 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONEERING CAMPAIGN DISCOURSE

Abstract

The paper focused on analysing underlying ethno-political ideologies
in hate speeches produced and circulated in the media during the
2023 presidential election campaigns in Nigeria. Using van Dijk’s
socio-cognitive approach, the study analysed the linguistic and
ideological features of hate speeches produced by politicians of All
Progressive Congress Party (APC), Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)
and Labour Party (LP). Data were purposively selected from fourteen
newspaper publications and Twitter posts using purported samplying.
The data comprised campaign speeches circulated on the websites of
Vanguard, Guardian, Tribune, Premium Times, and posts circulated on
some party loyalists’ Twitter (now rebranded as X) handles. Data were
collected from speeches circulated from September 28, 2022 to
February 23, 2023. The period covers the inception of the 2023
general election campaigns to forty-eight (48) hours before the
presidential election. The findings of the study showed, among
others, that political candidates and their supporters employed ethnopolitical ideologies in the hate speeches to enact or resist power,
supremacy, discrimination and marginalisation. The study
recommends that Nigerian government and the Independent
National Electoral Commission (INEC) should intensify voters’
awareness on hate speeches deployed during election campaigns in
the country as a way of mitigating the spread of dissension and ethnic
intolerance fuelled by desperation during elections