Stances and Engagement in ‘The Gang Up to Deal with Buhari’

Abstract

Studies across the world have examined the actitivies of political actors and non political actors (the electorate) in different political contexts. However, in the Nigerian context, while the activities of the political actors have received much scholarly attention, there is dearth of literature on the activities of the electorate, especially as it relates to their deployment of the social media to engage political issues in the country. Thus, within the purview Hyland’s (2005) stance and engagement theory, this study examines stances and engagement in the comments and posts on ‘The gang up to deal with Buhari’, which revolves round the candidacy of President Muhammadu Buhari in the 2019 Presidential Election, by Facebook ‘friends’ of Edmund Obilo, the anchor of ‘State Affairs’ aired on Splash F.M, Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria. Data comprised thirty-four posts/comments purposively sampled from the over one hundred and fifteen comments of Nigerian electorate in response to the said post on Edmund Obilo’s ‘public opinion Facebook page’. Data were subjected to interpretive-cum-pragmatic anaylsis. Findings reveal two main stances on the post: ‘Buhari must go’ and ‘Buhari will win 2019 Election’. These two views are expressed and vigorously pursued by the proponents with stance elements of hedges, boosters, attitude markers and self mention; and engagement tools as personal and possessive pronouns, questions and directives. The social media, particularly the Facebook, has proved to be a veritable plaform for Nigerian electorate to express their opinions on the Nigerian political space.

Keywords: Muhammadu Buhari, 2019 Presidential Election in Nigeria, Facebook ‘friends’, Edmund Obilo

Temitope M. Ajayi, Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Cape Town; Email: michealtemitope@yahoo.com