A Comparative Analysis of Syntactic Features in Inaugural Speeches of President Olusegun Obasanjo and President Muhammadu Buhari

This paper entitled, ‘Comparative Analysis of Syntactic Feature in Inaugural Speeches of President Olusegun Obasanjo and President Muhammadu Buhari’, examined the usage of a syntactic feature in inaugural speeches of President Olusegun Aremu Obasanjo on the 29th May, 1999 and 29th May, 2003 and President Muhammdu Buhari on the 29th May, 2015 and 29th May, 2019 respectively. The overall aim of the paper was to make comparative analysis of a syntactic features in inaugural speeches of President Olusegun Obasanjo and President Muhammadu Buhari and the specific objectives included: determining the quantity of structural sentences used (simple sentences, compound sentences, complex sentences and compound-complex sentences), determining the frequency of each the four structural of sentences used and determining the percentage of each of the four structural of sentences in the four inaugural speeches in the inaugural speeches under review. The four inaugural speeches two each by the two former Presidents making four inaugural speeches formed the corpus of the work. Purposive sampling technique was used to select the corpus of the study. The study adopted descriptive research design for the fact that it involves the procedure in which data are normally collected, organized, described and analyzed as they are (in natural setting) without distorting them. The design involved quantitative and qualitative approaches. Manual method was used in generating and analyzing the data. David Recador’s Comparative Analysis Theory (CAT) was used to form the basis for this research. Results showed that there were 128 sentences, 154 sentences, 97 sentences and 152 sentences in OIS 1, OIS 2, BIS 1 and BIS 2 respectively. One of the findings showed that there is significant increase in the number of sentences used in each of their respective second speeches. Secondly, there were more both simple and compound sentences than the complex and compound-complex combined together in all the speeches except for OIS 2 which has less simple and compound sentences. One of the recommendations proffered by the study included: Engage English for Special purposes (ESP) practitioners to help in producing balanced speeches.