Comparative discourse analysis of Buhari and Atiku’s Twitter campaigns during Nigeria’s 2019 presidential election
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Abstract
The incumbent-versus-challenger lens offers a vital comparative approach to understanding how asymmetric rhetorical burdens shape electoral campaign discourse. However, in the Nigerian context, existing enquiries have largely concentrated on offline speeches, neglecting the increasingly popular domain of online campaigning. Furthermore, previous analyses relied on one-dimensional thematic categorisations that fail to capture the vertical trajectory linking multiple rhetorical concepts – ultimately treating campaign discourse as static rather than as multi-layered rhetorical acts. Therefore, this study compares the Twitter campaign discourses of President Muhammadu Buhari and his challenger, Atiku Abubakar, during Nigeria’s 2019 general elections. The comparison focuses on (a) identifying ‘Us’ vs. ‘Them’ ideology construction, (b) examining how Us/Them boundaries are exploited to project ethos, and (c) examining how dimensions of ethos are utilised to perform legitimation and delegitimation. To achieve this, the study draws on Aristotle’s Rhetoric and van Dijk’s Critical Discourse Analysis to analyse 140 campaign tweets, split equally between the official handles of Buhari and Atiku. The frameworks utilised include van Dijk’s (1998, 2011) Ideological Square, Beason’s (1991) Strategies for Establishing an Effective Persona, and Reyes’ (2011) Strategies of Legitimation in Political Discourse. The results indicate that while the incumbent leveraged his built-in legitimacy to construct defensive discourse using fewer strategies, the challenger relied heavily on rhetoric to convince voters of the need for systematic change and to demonstrate his qualifications.
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