Self-Profiling and Agenda Marketing in Buhari’s May 29, 2018 Broadcast and Adjoining Pronouncements

Abstract

Considering that the discursive structures in political discourse often manifest the ideological properties of language and the choices that speakers make from a number of alternative words are self-serving, this paper evaluates the Nigerian President, Muhammadu Buhari’s linguistic strategies of self-profiling and political agenda marketing. Data were excerpted from Buhari’s May 29, 2018 Democracy Day broadcast, “The-Not-Too-Young-to-Run-Bill” and his Press Statement announcing a posthumous Award to the winner of June 12, 1993 Presidential Election and the declaration of June 12 as Democracy Day in Nigeria. The study, based on Critical Discourse Analysis, revealed that self-profiling and agenda marketing in these texts manifested language ideologies which were instantiated through the co-option of critical stakeholders, performance profiling and agenda-setting which were aimed at halting the low performance rating of the president but to earn him re-election in 2019. Buhari’s pronouncements and, by extension, his ideology, were political gimmicks aimed at enlisting the support of Nigerians and hoodwink them into giving him a fresh mandate. The study’s interrogation of Buhari’s pre-election pronouncements could guide the public in their reaction to the ideologies of politicians.