A digito-linguistic analysis of the 2019 Democracy Day speech of former Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari

Abstract

ABSTRACT This study undertakes a digito-linguistic analysis of the 2019 Inauguration/Democracy speech of former Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari’s with a view to identifying the various discursive structures in the speech and the social functions they perform. The study adopts van Dijk’s socio-cognitive theory of critical discourse analysis as a theoretical framework. Data were selected through the purposive sampling method and subjected to qualitative and quantitative analysis. The study identifies fourteen discursive structures: actor description, authority, comparison, disclaimer, euphemism, evidentiality, example/illustration, irony, lexicalisation, metaphor, self-glorification, norm expression, number game, us-them, pervading the five discourse strategies in Buharis’s speech. The discourse strategies which include: number game; self-glorification; validation of the Nigeria project; highlighting of achievements, and deployment of escapist statements, are engaged to: express commitment to the development of the nation, give a positive self-representation, and dissociate from Nigeria’s woes. Voyant tools reveal the preponderance of Buhari’s expression of commitment to the Nigerian course. The study concludes that Buhari uses his Democracy/Inauguration speech to emphasise the importance of the Nigeria project and to call for social change among Nigerians.