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A Linguistic Stylistic Analysis Of The Campaign Speeches Of Two Presidential Candidates In The 2011 Elections
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1.2 A BRIEF PROFILE OF THE CONTESTANTS.
Many presidential candidates publicly declared their intentions but we shall look at two for this study.
General
Muhammadu Buhari was born on December, 1942 in Daura, Katsina state in
the North West zone, Nigeria. He became Nigeria’s Head of State on
December 31, 1983. He was over thrown on August 27, 1985. His
administration introduced the “War Against Indiscipline†(WAI) campaign
which, despite its highhandedness, it still landed to have created the
most orderly conduct in both public and private life of the country
since independence.
Before becoming head of state, Buhari had been
chairman of the Nigerian National Petroleum Cooperation, minister of
petroleum and natural resource and governor of north eastern state of
Nigeria. He was also chairman of Petroleum (special) Trust Fund under
General Sani Abacha; since 2003, Buhari has sought to become Nigeria’s
civilian president, without success. He contested in the 2003 and 2007
presidential elections under the platform of the All Nigerian People’s
Party, losing out on both occasions to the Peoples Democratic Party
candidates. He fell out of the leadership of the All Nigerian People’s
Party and succeeded in pulling out with him some of the supporters of
the party which formed the Congress for Progressive Change. He was
ratified as the presidential candidate of the party in 2011 elections.
He declared that CPC is ready “to get the PDP off the backs of Nigerians
and hammers on the need for change. (starAfrica.com/en/news)
Dr
Goodluck Ebele Jonathan was born on Nov 20, 1957 in Otuoke, Bayelsa
state south-south zone, Nigeria. He is a Ph.D. holder in hydrobiology
and fisheries. He was appointed as Science Inspector of Education;
Rivers state Ministry of Education between 1983 and 1993. He took up
employment as a lecturer in the State College of Education. He was
appointed Assistant Director of the defunct Oil Mineral Producing Areas
Development Commission. His desire to better the lot of the people
motivated him to go into politics in 1998. Simplicity, charisma, quiet
strength, and determination made him an ideal running mate to chief
D.S.P, Alamieyeseigha on the Bayelsa PDP gubernatorial ticket. They won
the elections and he served as a deputy governor from 1999 to 11,
December 2000. But on 12, December 2005, he became the substantive
governor of Bayelsa state. After that, fate once again beckoned on him
to a higher height. As he was busy preparing for a re-election as a
state governor, the PDP, nominated him as a running mate to the
presidential candidate, Alhaji Umaru Yar’Adua. On May 29, 2007; he was
inaugurated as Nigeria’s Vice- President.
In February 9, 2010, Dr.
Jonathan assumed office as Nigeria’s Acting President by virtue of a
National Assembly’s resolution empowering him following President
Yar’Adua’s long absence for Medical attention in Saudi Arabia. Dr.
Goodluck Ebele Jonathan was sworn in on May 6, 2010 as President,
Commander-in-chief of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
In April, 2011
the incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan was re-elected as President,
Commander-in-chief of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, and with a
transformation agenda. (http://www.goodluckjonathanfor2011.com)
1.3 AN OVERVIEW OF POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS IN NIGERIA
A
campaign is a series of actions that are intended to achieve a
particular result, especially in politics or business. Oota (2011:1)
adds that campaigns are exciting events where oratory is on display and
love shared though sometimes thugs and other violent characters may be
out to unleash mayhem on innocent party supporters.
The Nigerian saga
of political campaigns, which has great bearing on our contemporary
situation, has its roots in the pre-independence era with the formation
of political parties. Appadorai (2003:282) states that a political party
is an organised group of citizens who hold similar political opinions
and who work to get control of the government in order that the policies
in which they are interested may be carried into effect. Since the
Pre-Independence and First Republic of 1959 and 1964 respectively,
political parties have participated in political campaigns which
prepared them for the general elections. But, political parties have had
their ideological differences, which were reflected in their
manifestos. Mohammed J. (2004:144-145), (Ogbodo, 2011:109), (Mohammed,
A. 2004:143).
Thereafter, other successive elections in Nigeria were
the 1979, 1983, 1993, 1999, 2003, 2007 and 2011. Each of these elections
was not without vibrant political campaigns by the various parties that
aspired to rule the country. Some of these were transition elections
organized by military regimes that had to hand over power to a
democratic civilian government (1979,1993 and 1999) while the elections
held in 1964, 1983, 2003, 2007 and 2011 were organized by incumbent
civilian governments whose offices and positions were also in contest.
(Sekibo, 2010), (Ogbodo, 2011:140).
In the 2011 elections which is
the period under study, there were 63 political parties but a total of
54 submitted candidates for various elective positions (Ogbodo,
2011:162) and (Corcoran 2011). This is against the 9 political parties
that participated in the 1959 and 1964 general elections. However, this
set the stage for a tougher presidential campaign, for no fewer than 21
political parties presented candidates for the elections. Prominent
among the 21 political parties are: Peoples Democratic Party (PDP),
Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN),
All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), Labour Party (LP), Democratic
People’s Alliance (DPA), and All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA).
This, therefore, made the political atmosphere in Nigeria to become
undoubtedly charged and political campaigns took centre stage. Ogbodo,
(2011:162) observes that instead of parties competing to better the lot
of the electorate, it has become warfare with each party trying to
defeat and if possible eliminate the opponents.
The contest for who
occupies the exalted office of the President and Commander-in-Chief of
the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is certainly
democratic (Oota, 2011:1). However, one of the major avenues which the
electorate’s minds were prepared for the elections was through the
political campaigns of these various presidential candidates. This was
also the same avenue whereby these presidential candidates sold their
party manifestos and (also) made their campaign promises to the
electorate. The people then took out time to watch their candidates
exhibit their understanding of the economy, security and their welfare
in terms of programmes and policies.
1.4 TYPES OF CAMPAIGNS
There are different kinds of campaigns, some of which are political campaign, advertising campaign, and military campaign.
Political
campaign is vote-seeking activities: a series of events, for example
rallies and speeches that are intended to persuade voters to vote for a
specific politician or party (Encarta 2009). Also, Ayeni-Akeke,
(2008:83) adds that political campaign is an important exertion in
presenting or marketing a candidate for an elective office. In other
words, it is an organized effort which seeks to influence the decision
making process within a specific group. The message of the campaign
contains the ideas that the candidate wants to share with the voters.
The message often consists of several talking points about policy. These
points summarize the main idea of campaign and are repeated frequently
in order to create a lasting impression with the voters. The objective
of every campaign speech is to convince the electorate that they have
the blueprint for tackling the numerous challenges facing the country.
For example, in Nigeria issues like power generation and distribution,
job creation, the nation’s general economic revival, industrial
development, repositioning of the education sector, revival of health
sector delivery, security situation in the land and the fight against
corruption featured prominently as they indeed dominated the campaign
speeches of the presidential candidates. As such, language use in
political campaigns has certain characteristics which differentiate it
from other varieties of language use. For instance, certain words are
repeated, the objective being to condition the minds of the electorate.
However, it is noted that some of the features of language use are
without timelines and specific strategies for actualization.
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