Voices in Selected Comments of Obiageli Ezekwesili on the #BringBackOurGirls Protest

Abstract

This article reports Obiageli Ezekwesili’s voices on the #BringBackOurGirls protest. Fusing Du Bois’s stance theory and Ochs’s theory of context as theoretical model, this study articulates Ezekwesili’s stances on the kidnapping of the Chibok schoolgirls. Data were sourced through purposive sampling from six prominent Nigerian online newspapers (Punch, Vanguard, Tribune, The Guardian, The Nation, and Daily Trust). Over 100 of Ezekwesili’s comments on the Chibok kidnapping were adopted as the study population. However, 20 comments were selected for analysis. The tenets of Du Bois’s stance theory and Ochs’s theory of context were engaged. Interior and exterior indexical stances are adopted through the deployment of lexical, pronominal, nominal, and verbal choices to reveal the collectivism, determination, power struggle, and resoluteness of the #BringBackOurGirls protesters. The study surmises that the language of protest is imbued with emotion-evoking stances that articulate the agitations of specific social actors in protest.