Abstract:
Hate speech is a prevalent phenomenon in Nigerian politics. As an aspect of political discourses, political actors engage in hateful discourses in order to showcase political and cultural sanctity. This paper examines rhetoric in hate speeches in Nigeria through the analytical lens of Van Dijk’s political discourse analysis. Data for the study were obtained from Nigerian online media and Twitter. The study reveals that hate speeches in Nigeria follow the repetition, addition, deletion and substitution rhetorical components of Van Dijk’s political discourse analysis. From the analysis, it was revealed that certain words were repeated as a means of emphasising out-group’s negative deeds as seen in Hate Speech 5 (HS5) and HS8. As a means of de-emphasising the in-group’s bad deeds, certain words were deleted for partisan reasons (HS4, HS13) whereas metaphors (HS3, HS5, HS6, HS10, HS11) with negative semantic imports serve as substitutes when describing the out-group. The study concludes that by over-emphasing the deficiencies of out-group members through the rhetorical device of repetition, ethnic tensions are entrenched and the hope of peaceful co-existence vanishes into thin air.
