Olusegun Obasanjo Research Articles

Assessement of Nigerias Afrocentric Foreign Policy: A Case Study of President Olusegun Obasanjo's Administration

The emergence of President Olusegun Obasanjo in 1999 as the president of Nigeria marked a significant transition from military rule to democratic rule, the image of the country have been battered in the international arena due to military dictatorship, hence the president have to concentrate on rebuilding the image of Nigeria. Nigeria's Afrocentrism, rooted in its post-independence policy under Prime Minister Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, has consistently placed Africa at the center of its foreign policy. The paper explores Nigeria's Afrocentric foreign policy, focusing on the administration of President Olusegun Obasanjo (1999-2007). This approach emphasizes African unity, emancipation, and development, with Nigeria playing a key role in mediation, conflict resolution, and peacekeeping within the continent. The research aimed to critically examines the effort made by president Obasanjo in area of ensuring democratic rule, Peacekeeping operations, and regional economic integration in Africa. This paper argues that Nigeria’s Afrocentric foreign policy, while altruistic, may require recalibration to better align with national interests, ensuring that such commitments do not disproportionately burden the Nigerian economy. The historical and analytical approach was employed in the presentation and analysis of data, the information goes through rigorous analysis that is data analysis, which is a technique for an objective, systematic and qualitative description of the data acquired. Furthermore, the theory employed in the making of this research is Concentric circle theory which was first brought from sociology, and later adopted in the study of foreign policy. A shift towards a more pragmatic and national interest-focused foreign policy, emphasizing economic growth and development, is recommended for future engagements.

Candidacy Endorsement and Rebuttals as Mediated Campaign Strategies in The 2023 Nigerian Election

Endorsements trigger arguments and rebuttals about the relevance of political actors by the spokesmen frontline political parties. Previous linguistic studies have focused more on campaign speeches; little attention has been paid to endorsement as a campaign strategy. This study investigated the endorsement speech of Olusegun Obasanjo (OBJ) and rebuttals by supporting and opposing spokesmen of Labour Party (LP), People’s Democratic Party (PDP), and All Progressive Congress (APC) in Nigerian elections, identifying and analysing the locutionary, illocutionary and Pragmatic strategies. The qualitative design was used. Data comprise purposely selected and transcribed texts from Channels Television (CHNLSTV) interview, moderated by Seun Okinbaloye. Data was downloaded from their YouTube channel Mariana Sbisa’s Speech Act, supported by John Searle’s classification of illocutionary, and the textual part of Mey’s Pragmatic Acts were used as the framework. The locutionary strategies of endorsements and rebuttals in the data were: juxtaposition with alternative facts, conscious denial of position and facts, affirmation of thoughts, representation of opinionated position and counter-position, acceptance of position or facts and attack/defense of personality traits. Three major illocutionary acts: expressive, representative, and directive, were seen. Pragmatic resources such as inference, reference, relevance, metaphor and shared situational knowledge underlined. Expressive was achieved by condoning, criticising, condemning and praising. Representative was constructed by the forces of asserting, accusing, comparing and contrasting or juxtaposing. Directive was justified by defining, declaring, endorsing and analogising. The study concludes that endorsements and rebuttals are the performance ratings of political agents.

A pragmalinguistic analysis of Im/Politeness in selected Nigerian Open Letters

This study aims to examine the pragmatic and linguistic aspects of politeness and impoliteness in Nigerian open letters. Its objectives are to: examine how linguistic choices indicate [im]politeness and investigate how common ground influences the expression of im/politeness in the selected open letters. The study employed the qualitative research method while it deployed the purposive sampling technique to select two open letters written to two sitting presidents in the Fourth Republic between 1999 and 2015. The Presidents were Olusegun Obasanjo and Goodluck Ebele Jonathan. Only the letters that centred on political matters and the state of the nation were considered in this study. The study uses the pragmalinguistic framework of Geoffrey Leech (2014) to analyse how im/politeness is grammticalised in the selected open letters. The analysis showed that iterative lexical such as ‘never’, more, many and routine iterative lexis are deployed with the Irony Principle (innuendo) to activate face threatening acts to attack the recipient’s face. From the analysis, it was revealed that the use of the iterative verb ‘repeat’ presupposes the writers’ misalignments with the recipient’s allegation of breaching the maxim of quality, i.e., fabricating lies; the adverb ‘more’ reveals a determination to debunk the allegation of mediocrity, etc. The study concludes that the open letters grammaticalise im/politeness in such a way that an understanding of the political narrative background prompting the writing of the letters is indispensable.

Sports as an Instrument of Foreign Policy Under the Military Rule in Nigeria: 1976-1996

The importance and popularity of sports among the nations of the world is huge. Sports are among the few common denominators for all the nations of the world irrespective of their respective political ideologies and religious inclinations. Through sports, enemies in political and ideological realms can compete between and among each other in an atmosphere of peace. Over the years, world leaders have used sports as an instrument of foreign policy. They do that in both positive and negative ways. Sports are deployed positively when they are used to boost friendship or to support a noble cause and they are used negatively when they are deployed as an instrument of sanctions. This paper shows how sports were used as an instrument of foreign policy in Nigeria by three military regimes of Olusegun Obasanjo, Ibrahim Babangida and Sanni Abacha. Olusegun Obasanjo's regime pulled out Nigeria's Olympic contingents from participating in the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal, Canada. Ten years later, the regime of Ibrahim Babangida led other Anglophone countries to boycott the 1986 Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh, Scotland; and in 1996 General Sanni Abacha stopped the Super Eagles from defending the title they won in the previous edition of the African Cup of Nations. Details of these boycotts and their political implications are discussed in this paper.

Politics, Jokes and Power in Africa: The View From Stand-Up Comedy

ABSTRACT The history of stand-up comedy in Africa has often been tied to developments in popular culture, language, and performance. In this article, I take a different perspective by identifying the interactivities of politics and comedy, and how the actions, endorsements, and even censure of national leaders across different nations buoyed up stand-up performances on the continent. With specific examples from different countries, the explications in this paper show how the (in)actions of political leadership in Africa served as fodder for laughter elicitation – in Kenya, with Daniel arap Moi’s capitulation and Mwai Kibaki’s lethargy; in Nigeria, with Olusegun Obasanjo’s comedian-president posture as well as the gaffes of Patience Jonathan; and in South Africa, with Jacob Zuma’s unending drama until his resignation. These situations are equally contrasted with the experiences in Uganda, Egypt and Rwanda, where political censure is variously rife.

Analysis of Polarity and Modality in Former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s Open Letters: A Critical Discourse Approach

This study is an analysis of the deployment of polarity and modality in the open letters of former president Olusegun Obasanjo. The study examines how Obasanjo has used language to construct meaning and convey his perspective on the goings-on in the Nigerian society. The study captures various scholarly works in the area of critical discourse analysis, which is the theoretical framework of the research and further incorporates this theory into the analysis of the data. Data analysis focuses on the assessment and evaluation of the writer’s deployment of polarity and modality in his narrative, and it thus revealed that the writer has dexterously used polarity to assume a position of neutrality, without tilting more or less to either the negative or positive; it has also revealed that the writer’s deployment of modality has helped him express his core concerns, expectations and objectives for a better Nigeria, through the use of certain modal verbs. The study further recommends that future studies should harness other areas of critical linguistics, such as transitivity, mood and intertextuality to help construe the ideational motivations of the writer.

Re-thinking the Legislature-Executive Relations and the Nigeria's Foreign Policy in the First Eight Years of Fourth Republic

This paper examined the legislative/executive brouhaha and Nigeria’s foreign policy, 1999 – 2007. The restoration of democratic rule in May, 1999 was a watershed in Nigeria's foreign policy. A new constitutional democracy headed by Chief Olusegun Obasanjo was born and the symbol of democracy, the legislation at both the national and sub – national levels was constituted. The premonition that Nigeria might once again bounce back to prominent global reckoning was obvious from the volume of goodwill that General Abubakar's transition programme generated in the country with the enthronement of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo as President and Commander In Chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces. Not too long after the inauguration of the government, the Legislature and the Executive brouhaha ensured and this had implications for both domestic and foreign policies of the Country. Methodologically, the paper adopted secondary data and content analysis in the scrutiny of the data. The study observed the absence of due process in policy formulation and implementation, amongst others were the major causes of ruckus Legislature and the Executive and recommended effective consultations and accountability as the remedy for rumpus.

FEDERALISM IN NIGERIA: INTERROGATING THE STATUS OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT AS THE THIRD TIER OF GOVERNMENT

Federalism which is the sharing of power between two or more levels of government but mostly between the centre and states in most mature federalisms of the world. Federalism in Nigeria has been at a cross-road, owing mostly to the long military interregnum with its centrist nature which made Nigeria’s federalism appear unitarist. This has affected the status of local government in Nigeria as an autonomous tier of government. This was compounded by the 1979 and 1999 Constitutions, bequeathed the nation by the retreating military governments of Olusegun Obasanjo and Abdulsalami Abubakar respectively, which gave the local governments autonomy with right hand and handed it over to the states with the left hand. This paper aims at critically interrogating the status of local government as a distinct and autonomous tier of government in Nigeria. In order to achieve this, the researchers adopted Content analysis, where they reviewed the works of other researchers, academics and experts in the concept of federalism and drew conclusions. Based on the findings available from the reviewed literature, the research concluded that the local government in Nigeria is not a tier of government but could at best be described as ‘a quasi tier’ of government, as it is neither autonomous financially, administratively or politically nor completely under the control of the states.

SERVICOM and Public Service Delivery in Nigeria: A study of Akwa Ibom State University

The quality, efficiency and impact of public service delivery remains an issue of grave concern in Nigeria as the Nation is known for its endemic poor public service delivery and productivity. To tackle this vice, its former President, Olusegun Obasanjo in March 2004, using its administrative powers ordered the establishment of SERVICOM Units in all Federal government ministries, departments and parastatals. This would later extend to the National Universities Commission and all Federal and State Universities in Nigeria. A synthesis of the SERVICOM charter shows that its central focus is on enhancing quality and measurable service delivery. The literature review and the theoretical framework grounded on Douglas McGregor’s famous Theory X and Y revealed that a third party inspector such as SERVICOM is a necessity in the public service delivery chain to ensure public services are delivered in a quantitative, qualitative, customer centric, affordable, accessible and predictable manner. Using a survey research and ANOVA, the researchers found that 93.80% of the respondents have not received the necessary awareness on the services of SERVICOM while 88.08% confirm that SERVICOM has not been monitoring their services. The study concludes that the inability to provide the needed awareness and monitoring had a significant negative effect on staff service delivery. It then made useful recommendations such as immediate commencement of a structured awareness programmes, monitoring and alignment with its sister unit in the institution towards the realization of the SERVICOM mandate.

Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and Anti-Corruption Crusade in Nigeria, (2015-2020)

Corruption has proven to be intractable in Nigeria, with resultant consequences on the political, economic and socio-cultural development of the nation. Though past military regimes, before the return to democratic government in 1999, initiated series of anti-corruption crusades at various times, corruption in high and low places continued to be on an alarming increase. With the return to democratic governance, President Olusegun Obasanjo saw to the establishment of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in 2002, which amongst others is vested with the responsibilities of prevention, investigation and prosecution of individuals, groups and institutions found culpable or corrupt, and unearth frauds and recover public loots in the country. After over a decade of the commission’s existence in the country, corruption remain a pandemic, which informed President Muhammadu Buhari’s second major promise during his campaign in 2015, to fight and completely eradicate corruption. Between 2015 and 2020, a lot a successes and failures have punctuated the activities of the commission and this is the thrust of this study. The Institutional Approach was used as the theoretical framework for the study and we relied on materials collected from secondary sources. Among other recommendations of the study, the Federal Government of Nigeria should speedily take steps to establish special courts to deal specifically with corruption cases while the Judicial Service Commission and the Nigeria Bar Association should be strengthened to deal firmly with alleged cases of corruption or misconduct involving Judges and lawyers respectively.

National Character and the Narrative of Self-Image in Mandela's Long Walk to Freedom and Obasanjo's My Watch

Building on the view of biographical writing as a cultural practice and expression, this article adopts identity and narrative theories to discuss the interconnection between national character and identity construction in political autobiographies. It employed Nelson Mandela's Long Walk to Freedom [LWF] (1994) and Olusegun Obasanjo's My Watch (2014) as primary texts. It identifies prejudice against black South Africans as the national character in LWF and postcolonial political disillusionment in Nigeria as that of My Watch. It further demonstrates how the personalities of Mandela and Obasanjo are rooted in role-based identity and the respective saliences that activate this identity type. Additionally, it discusses the modes of narration in the two texts. The article concludes that national character is a sociocultural and psychological indicator that influences identity construction in political autobiographies.

Corruption and Government Mechanisms in Nigeria: Diagnosis and Treatment

As widely perceived by many that corruption and other unethical conducts have become a destructive cankerworm that has eaten deep in every nation’s economy. Although, the scenario is not common only to Nigeria but the manner at which the ill-gotten wealth individuals were being celebrated in country is highly alarming. Nigeria is known for its series of anti-corruption mechanisms put in place by the government in order to curtail the menace in the society. Upon the establishment of the Military Legislations to curb the menace in 1975 under Generals Murtala Ramatu Muhammed and Olusegun Obasanjo down to 1999under the administration of President Olusegun Obasanjo where two separate anti-corruption bodies were formed (ICPC and EFCC), and to the present Administration under President Muhammadu Buhari where whistleblowing mechanism is introduced, the level of corruption is more pronounced and rampant both in public and private sectors of the Nigeria’s economy. One will be wondering why Nigeria is yet to put total remedies to the scourge of corruption in the country. The study proffers some hints, if it can be adopted by the government to strengthen the anti-corruption tools put in place. Some of the measures include, the inclusion of individuals, all and sundry in the fight against corruption. As opined by the collective action theory employed by the study, corruption cannot be fought and won in isolation but requires collective efforts and change of masses’ orientation on the need to return sanity back to Nigeria. Similarly, our religious and traditional leaders have numerous roles to play in reducing unethical conducts in the society. Conferment of religious or traditional titles to those that do not deserve it in the society should be corrected and discouraged in its totality. When these and many more are done, there is every possibility that Nigeria will be a lesser corrupt country and great again.

Achieving Its Objective: Has the Universal Basic Education Policy Increased the School Enrolment of the Girl Child?

Nigeria has one of the highest numbers of out of school children globally, with the girl child accounting for 60 per cent of this figure. To find a solution to the high number of out-of-school children and the dire state of public-run schools, improve the existing curriculum and educational policy. The Government of Olusegun Obasanjo introduced the Universal Basic Education Policy. The policy objective is to provide nine (9) years of free and compulsory primary and junior secondary education from ages 6 to 15. Adopting the ex-post facto research method, the study examines the impact of the Universal Basic Education policy on school enrollment of the girl child in Calabar South Local Government Area of Cross River State, Nigeria. Data for the study was collected using qualitative and quantitative methods from 390 participants from Calabar South, Cross River State, Nigeria. Data analysis was carried out hypothesis by hypothesis at a 95 per cent confidence level. Data analyzed revealed a significant impact of the Universal Basic Education policy on school enrolments of the girl child. The government should increase and improve its supervisory mechanism in public schools to check for illegal school fees being collected by school management, among others.

FAKE NEWS & HATE SPEECH: A Colloquium Report

Nigeria, the proverbial giant of Africa, has in recent times, been beset with the politics of paternalism which has translated into heightened consciousness in ethnic nationalism and extremist immoderation, all too manifest in the now very dominant paradigm of fake news and hate speech. Amidst this threatening state of confusion, the nation-state witnesses its highest level of polarization among the citizenry and records a harvest of kidnappings, abductions, raping and ritual killings, all of which the government blames on fake news and hate speech. 
 As part of its contribution in the attempt to mitigate and possibly proffer a solution to the twin monsters of fake news and hate speech, the Olusegun Obasanjo Centre for African Studies (OOCAS) at the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) Abuja organized a one-day Colloquium on Fake News and Hate Speech. This report, therefore, is a descriptive analysis that highlights the culture of impunity with which political elites incite and polarize the citizenry, especially on the contentious issues of religion and ethnicity.
 The paper applies the critical discourse analysis approach to evaluate the colloquium proceedings - the views, positions and propositions of discussants/participants and the ensuing communiqué that fake news and hate speech are largely products of mainstream and social media; with governments and political elites as the main culprits who exploit the volatile issues of religion, politics and ethnicity to polarize and incite.
 The paper concludes with nine communiqué recommendations including, that the mass media, especially the mainstream media, should invest more in the practice of investigative journalism and Nigeria’s governments, in general, should provide good governance, equity and justice to the citizenry; that, participants and discussants believe will curb the menace of fake news and hate speech.

Discourse Strategies in Chief Olusegun Obasanjo’s Letter to President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan

The paper sets out to investigate the discourse strategies deployed by former President Olusegun Obasanjo in his open letter to President Jonathan on December 12, 2013 which was published in most of the nation’s major newspapers. The work adopts M.A.K Halliday’s Systemic Functional Grammar as its theoretical framework because of the great importance which the model attaches to meanings and functions of a linguistic expression in relation to its context of usage. The researchers, through content and qualitative analysis, identify the discourse strategies used by the encoder of the speech to have the desired maximum effects on the decoders, especially President Goodluck Jonathan. Our findings reveal that President Obasanjo makes use of six discourse strategies in the letter for achieving some aims. The discourse strategies are: references to national interest; using the vocative “Mr President”; mentioning and portraying God in different perspectives; making direct appeals to the president; making references to late Gen. Sanni Abacha and copious repetitions of Nigeria and Nigerians in the text.

RETROSPECTIVE CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF BARACK OBAMA’S AND OLUSEGUN OBASANJO’S POLITICAL COMMUNICATION FEATURES AND STYLES

Governments make calculated human capital commitment to political communication because of its indispensability and effectiveness as a veritable tool, which underlies and is underlined by massive government investment in public communication. Presidential communication is rooted in, influenced, and limited by, usually, certain written codes. This study examined why, when, and how two presidents said what they said, and why they did or not do as said. Thesis problem was unravelling how features and styles of two presidents facilitated their political communication and public policies. Study fitted into two models, using two political communication theories: mainly ‘Aristotelian Political Rhetoric;’ Walter Fisher’s ‘the Narrative Paradigm’ as theoretical guides. Using original communications of two presidents, this comparative and historical study bridged the sparse scholarship on comparative presidential political communication. Data were obtained from purposively selected sample population, collated, analysed and interpreted, deploying multiple instruments, majorly content and discourse analyses chosen for their effectiveness at measuring predetermined variables. Selected published presidential communications 178 and 158 each all totaling 336 obtained from secondary sources formed the sample population. Findings of study revealed both presidents were largely more dissimilar than otherwise. Their backgrounds reflected, not dominated their communications. As communicators, they were urban-romanticisers, but rural-jilters, promoting rural exclusion, and accessibility to selected urban congregations. Obama’s presidential communication was delivered using peculiar styles, like Olusegun Obasanjo’s, both relying on diverse notable features. Conclusively, presidential political communication should be additional statutory responsibility of presidents to legally guarantee accountability, and practical democracy. Presidential communication system must be deconstructed and reconstructed to promote professional speech-making, and polity-connected presidential political communication.

Discursive Construction of Synonymous Relations in Political Speeches


 
 
 
 Abstract
 Existing studies on political discourse have investigated the role of language in propaganda, the emotive use of language by politicians, the ideological undertone of modal verbs in political speeches, often ignoring the discursive use of synonyms, especially in the Nigerian context. This paper thus examines the discursive construction of synonyms in selected speeches of former Nigerian president, Olusegun Obasanjo with the aim of identifying the ideological implication of the synonymous construction in the speeches. His speeches are worth studying as he was the first military head of state to be elected a civilian president, thereby leading the country on two good occasions. Twelve speeches were purposively sampled comprising those he made as a military head of state and as a civilian president. These periods are important in Nigeria’s political history. The study adopted evaluative semantics and sociocognitive approach of critical discourse analysis as theoretical basis. The former accounts for the synonymous relations in the speeches and the latter, their ideological import. The findings show that the synonymous relations represent optimism and expectations from individual, society and institution. Synonyms related to optimism are characterised by government’s commitment to positive change, transformation and hope, while synonyms that relate to issue of expectation from the individual, the society and institutions are characterised by societal development, forbearance, disorder, healthy information management and dissemination, and negative practices and values. Thus, these synonymous relations, when considered together with the co(n)text, reflect Obasanjo’s reformist agenda.
 
 
 

Discursive Construction of Synonymous Relations in Political Speeches: the Case of Some President Olusegun Obasanjo's Speeches

Discursive Construction of Synonymous Relations in Political Speeches: the Case of Some President Olusegun Obasanjo's Speeches

Discursive Construction of Synonymous Relations in Political Speeches: the Case of Some President Olusegun Obasanjo's Speeches

Discursive Construction of Synonymous Relations in Political Speeches: the Case of Some President Olusegun Obasanjo's Speeches

Hegemonic Rivalry in a Peripheral Region: An Assessment of Nigeria–South Africa’s Role in African Politics

Nigeria’s claim as the giant of Africa is evident in her foreign policy articulation of African Centre Piece. From 1960, Nigeria has championed the project of Africa through different diplomatic engagements across the continent of Africa most especially under President Olusegun Obasanjo’s civilian administration. Nigeria’s unwavering support against the apartheid regime in South Africa led to the termination of apartheid government in 1994. However, the post- apartheid politics in Africa as well as the post-Cold War politics changed the dynamics of African politics. Nigeria’s claim as the giant of Africa became more contested and hypothetical with the emergence of notable countries such as Ethiopia and South Africa posing serious challenges to Nigeria’s hegemony in the continent. The most viable and notable threats came from South Africa following the end of apartheid regime in South Africa and coupled with its good governance rating, which had heightened the status of the country as a notable continental leader. This article attempts to explain the leadership roles of Nigeria and South Africa in a peripheral region of Africa with the view of analysing who has the sway to lead the affairs of Africa to the path of prosperity. Through the secondary method of data collection and qualitative method of data analysis (discourse analysis), the study concludes that Nigeria and South Africa roles in Africa were motivated by realist considerations. The study, however, recommends concerted efforts between Nigeria and South Africa in addressing socio-economic challenges in the African continent.