Divisive politics: analysis of ethnic rhetoric and hate speech in the 2023 Lagos Governorship elections

The last decade has witnessed a rise in misinformation and disinformation. Countries and individuals have been impacted by both and Nigeria's elections have not been left out. Rhetoric has gone beyond being a tool for shaping public opinion, to one used to promote fear, divisiveness and violence, especially in countries with ethnic and religious diversity. During the 2019 Nigerian elections, rhetoric was used to spread misinformation and disinformation about opposing candidates and parties. The 2023 elections took it further, using specific narratives like “Lagos is Yoruba land” to amplify existing ethnic, religious, and political differences, during the elections in Lagos. Adopting Political Communication and Social Identity as theoretical framework and using a Thematic analysis, the study assessed the strategies used to package ethnic and religious rhetorics in the social media political posts on X (formerly) Twitter and Facebook concerning the 2023 Lagos Governorship elections and how this influenced other social media users. Findings indicate that there is a major gap in terms of the responsibilities of political actors to do no harm and how they used rhetorics in the 2023 election campaigns in Lagos State. The actors weaponised social and political identity majorly, using history, threats and shaming to achieve their aim. Additionally, the posts contained triggering words/phrases and this also reflected in the responses to some of the posts. The persistent use of ethnicity and negative identity based political rhetoric if left unchecked in future elections will resuscitate old wounds, deepen societal fractures, which can be traced to the early years of the country. This in turn threatens the development of strong democratic institutions as the electorate weigh self-preservation over exercising their rights to vote and participate in the process. The next election cannot be allowed to shift from democratic persuasion to cause even lower voter turnout through the use of fear.