Body and Person Metaphors in Nigerian Inaugural Political Speeches 1999-2023

Abstract

This paper interrogates body and person metaphors in five inaugural speeches of Nigerian presidents since the inception of democracy in 1999, also known as the Fourth Republic. Specifically, it identifies metaphorical linguistic expressions in the data and argues that these expressions, though innocuous, have profound ideological and rhetorical potentials in framing political identity, individual speaker agency and national consciousness as well as highlighting interested versions of reality while obfuscating others. Using the synergy of corpus linguistics, cognitive linguistics and critical linguistics as espoused in critical metaphor analysis (CMA), and five inaugural speeches of the five Nigerian presidents between 1999 and 2023, the paper respectively identifies the conventional metaphorical linguistic expressions in the selected data by applying the Metaphorical Identification Procedure (MIP) of the Pragglejazz Group, derives the underlying conceptual metaphors in the identified metaphorical expressions through the conceptual mappings in source and target domains and finally subjects them to critical discourse analysis (CDA) to pragmatically explain their rich rhetorical and ideological underpinnings in the Nigerian socio-political landscape. Findings show preponderance of body and person metaphors cognitively mapping Nigerian nation, electorate, economy, corruption, democracy, government and public institutions ontologically to abstract concepts as sickness, growth, survival, resilience, volition which affect the human body and personhood, or structurally as possessing human bodily attributes with potentials for performing certain actions. While all administrations rely on these body and person metaphors, their emphases shift according to political context and priorities: moral cleansing, generational responsibility, developmental optimism, disciplinary purification, and restorative healing. In all the speeches, the speakers position themselves in paternalistic, messianic and familial relationship with their audiences, thus construing shared obligation towards bodily and personhood preservation. The paper concludes that while this participatory framing can be empowering, it can also subtly shift responsibility for solution of national problems onto the public, thus potentially masking governmental failures by emphasizing collective blame or duty.