International Journal of Sub-Saharan African Research (IJSSAR)

Background: Nigeria as a developing nation has witnessed social protests of different forms emanating from the perceived insensitivity of the Nigerian government to the plight of the people. These protests were demonstrated out of anger as a result of the government’s inability to address socio-political, economic, and security related challenges confronting the Nigerian public. Therefore, protest ideologies emerge when two opposing groups engage in confrontation to protect their interest.
Objective: This study explored protest ideologies during the 2012 fuel subsidy protest and showed how linguistic features used communicate ideologies.
Method: The study employed both primary and secondary sources of data. The primary source included three fuel subsidy video clips. The choice of three video clips is based on the fact that the videos captured three major Nigerian cities (Lagos, Kano and Port Harcourt) that had the highest number of fuel subsidy protesters in 2012. The video clips were watched and protesters’ speeches were transcribed. A total of three protesters’ speeches were selected and subjected to linguistic analysis, and this was done using van Dijk’s ideological square. Results: The study discovered that pronominal items, negative words and linguistic expressions were used to either emphasise or mitigate the interest groups represented in the discourse.
Conclusion: The study concludes that ideology is a crucial concept to the analysis of social protests in Nigeria. It further shows ideological differences between the protesters on one hand and the Nigerian government on the other hand. Also, linguistic features analysed in the study show the good actions of the protesters and bad actions of the government to the public.
Unique Contribution: The study offered new insight into how ideologies are revealed through the use of different linguistic features. It also added to how negative word, pronominal items and linguistic expression were basically used by protesters to mitigate the good part of the Nigerian government and emphasise the good actions of the protesters to the public.
Key Recommendation: The study, therefore, recommends that the Nigerian government should always pay attention to the welfare of the people, allow for open dialog with citizens and peoples’-oriented policies should be implemented.