Rhetorical Strategies in Selected 2023 Presidential Campaign Speeches of Peter Obi

Peter Obi, a prominent Nigerian born politician is widely celebrated for his ornamented oratory prowess and excellent use of language which brought a novel dimension to the 2023 presidential election campaign in Nigeria. Despite this dynamics thrown up in the 2023 presidential campaign, Obi's campaign speeches are yet to receive adequate scholarly attention for his embellished use of rhetoric, hence the need for this present study in order to establish how language can be used to convince an audience through the deliberate manipulation of rhetorical strategies by the given speaker. The data for this study were the selected except of Obi's 2023 campaign speeches sourced from the official page of Labour Party and transcribed for this exercise. Joseph Moxley's model of rhetorical strategies serves as theoretical orientation to explore how messages are constructed, delivered and received by the intended audience. The study highlights that Obi's rhetorical style is a deliberate and strategic combination of persuasive techniques which is in line with democratic principles and citizen-centred governance. The findings suggest that effective political communication in Nigeria's democracy demands more than charisma; it requires ethical appeals, emotional intelligence and coherent policy discourse.