Influencing Voters Behaviour: Language and Ideology of Selected Nigerian Political Campaign Speeches

This study investigates the language and ideology of selected Nigerian political campaign speeches. It analyses the political campaign speeches of Peter Obi, Atiku Abubakar, and Bola Tinubu during the 2023 Nigerian presidential election to reveal how language functions as a tool for persuasion and reflects sociopolitical dynamics in Nigeria. Using Fairclough’s discourse analysis framework, this research investigates the linguistic patterns, rhetorical strategies, and grammatical structures used by the candidates to communicate their ideologies, influence voters, and construct leadership identities. Findings reveal distinct patterns in the candidates’ speech strategies. Peter Obi’s rhetoric emphasised systemic reform, transparency, and collective progress, engaging voters reflectively with rhetorical questions and conditionals. Atiku Abubakar critiqued systemic failures, using nominalizations and declaratives to position his leadership as solution-oriented, appealing to voters seeking economic rejuvenation. Bola Tinubu employed imperatives and parallelism to command loyalty, inspire optimism, and project himself as a pragmatic leader. All the candidates used linguistic structures that functioned as persuasive tools, framing them as credible, relatable, and solution-driven leaders. The study demonstrates the interplay between language and political ideology, reaffirming the relevance of CDA in analysing political communication. It highlights the influence of rhetorical strategies on voters’ behaviour and underscores the importance of discourse analysis for understanding power relations in political contexts.