A Social Semiotic Analysis of Political Cartoons on the 2023 Nigerian Presidential Election

Abstract

Political cartoons, as part of visual communication, are powerful tools for critiquing Nigeria’s political culture. This paper analyses some political cartoons on the 2023 Presidential election in Nigeria. The purpose is to expose how some socio-political issues eroded the democratic process during the election period. Political cartoonists used different semiotic resources to capture these issues. Six political cartoons from online sources are purposively selected as the data for this study. The Visual Social Semiotic theory of Kress and van Leeuwen (1996, 2006) is the theoretical framework adopted for this study. The selected cartoons are analysed on the three metafunction levels of meaning, namely: representational, interactive and compositional. This enabled an in-depth and comprehensive analysis of the cartoons, bringing to the fore societal ills and the shortcomings of the political class. The analysis revealed such themes as the naira redesign policy and its harsh effect on the populace. The cartoons also captured visually, electoral violence, vote buying, and erosion of confidence in the electoral process depicted as ‘the sleeping electorate’. Through the analysis, the cartoons visually exposed the pre-election societal hardships suffered by the average Nigerians right before the presidential election.  The cartoons provide a platform for the citizens to reflect and engage in active civic discourse.