Political Metaphors and Clichés in a Nigerian Independence Day Speech

By

¹Ene'ojo Joshua Onuche (Ph.D) & ²Oladimeji Kaseem Olaniyi (Ph.D)

¹Department of English and Literary Studies, Prince Abubakar Audu University, Anyigba, Kogi State Nigeria

²Department of English, Federal University, Lokoja, Kogi State Nigeria

Corresponding author’s email & phone No: eneojojonuche@gmail.com, 08038897338

Abstract

Articles abound on political discourses from a metaphoric point of view. This article justifiably focused on the many over used words by Nigerian present and past presidents. These clichés are identified as different kinds of politically motivated usages for the motifs of suppression, servitude and hero-worshipping. From a cognitive linguistic point of view this paper adopts Lakoff and Johnson’s (1980) theory of metaphor which drives the “understanding and experiencing of one kind of thing in terms of another”. In other words, the theory provides the ideology of a target domain A as source domain B. Making sense of a metaphor is done by mapping salient properties (and where possible: relations between those properties) from source to target. A few metaphorically embedded expressions from President Muhammad Buhari of Nigeria were drawn from the 56^th independence speech which were recorded and transcribed for analyses in this paper. From economic recession to the unending state of insecurity in the nation as well as the musketeering scourge of corruption and dependence on importation, the appeal of PMB has been made to explain poor aqua-culture and rural development, poor state of power and energy in Nigeria, poor state of federal roads across the nation, poor housing and infrastructural programmes and on the whole is the unfriendly business environment in Nigeria, repugnant to foreign investors. We conclude that different worldviews have been communicated persuasively through metaphorical expressions tactically employed in this political discourse; the 56^th Independence Day speech of PMB.

Keywords: Cliches, Metaphors, Independence Day speech, Economy, Security, Transportation

1.0 Introduction

Clichés are platitudinal stereotypes; expressions most often phrases overused outside their original contexts, so that their original impacts and meanings are lost. In politics, i.e., the process of creating public policy through influencing or controlling the sources of power and authority, the process of competition and usually conflicts and agitations (see Hogan 2006, p. 278) cannot be ruled out. In the same vein, governance, i.e., the central agency or complex totality of inter-related organizations exercising overall control over a society or a territorially delimited subdivisions of a society. In fact, governments exist in complex societies as formal agencies of social control, in contrast to the informal traditional forms of control in non-literate or simple societies (see Hogan 2006, p. 182). Whereas there are several cultures: political, economic and social among others, discourse strategies and goals are negotiated through language.

 Language, however is a social product. Each individual in the cultures develops language through prolonged interaction with members who are already socialized, and language represents the accumulated and current experiences, feelings and meanings that can be communicated and stabilized within the culture (cf. Hogan, 2006, p. 220). Language and its fluidity allows politicians to make rhetorical monologues which can at best be appreciated by linguistically informed minds but criticized by political opponents who watch the trend of events in a politically complicated nation such as Nigeria. This consciousness informs the careful choices of words made by presidents of nations to use clichés which their citizens are familiar with and not real expressions from their intuitive love for the masses.

 Many of the political expressions are chosen to manoeuvre the psyche of the populace. From a cognitive Linguistic point of view, this article seeks to study the metaphors in the Nigerian polity as enmeshed in the traditional camaraderie which the present crop of politicians have had with their party loyalists and which they enjoy from the electorates. President Mohammadu Buhari (PMB) in a fifty paragraphed essay highlighted the major challenges confronting Nigeria at this time. These highlights have been chosen as ready data for study in this article.

 Analysing Sam Omatsaye, a political analyst, Ishowo (2015) has said that Nigeria is at the moment sitting on a gun powder which can explode any moment from now. “Nigeria has been flogged by Boko Haram, harassed by flood, whipped by kidnapping, boxed-in by inelegant electoral jousting, jousted by corruption, pock-marked by robbers, grinned by poverty, immobilized by impotent leaders, steam-rolled by road accidents, gutted by air crashes, pin-falling by failed institutions and knocked out by despair”. All the ailments aforementioned were addressed in the 56^th independence speech delivered on 1st October, 2016 by President Mohammadu Buhari .

 In order not to be carried away by the rhetorics of PMB’s speech, it is imperative we track the culture of political language usage in Nigeria. Medubi (2003, p. 310) recognizes the norms of a society and value system to be at the heart of any political culture. The value system, not only influences the political scripts that are formulated to explicate that particular culture but also provides a good understanding of society. In the speech delivered by PMB, there seems to be a tacit understanding of the Nigerian society driven by the forces which tirelessly work towards its disintegration and collapse. In his speech, PMB demonstrates knowledge of human desires for good government and its motivation towards the satisfaction of similar universally acknowledged basic needs. The speech of PMB therefore investigates the following factors defining the polity and the challenges confronting the nation.

1. Economic recession in Nigeria
2. State of insecurity in the nation
3. The various insurgent groups crippling the nation
4. The scourge of corruption and dependence on importation
5. Poor aqua-culture and rural development
6. Poor state of power and energy in Nigeria
7. Poor state of federal roads across the nation
8. Poor transportation system
9. Poor housing and infrastructural programmes
10. Unfriendly business environment in Nigeria

 As much as the vital focal points aforementioned above appear attractive, they are clichés which critical minds would attest to be same song sung by past leaders in Nigeria. This paper seeks to examine these expressions critically neither from a pragmatic nor a semantic point of view but from a cognitive metaphorical point of view.

2. Metaphor and Political Discourse

 In the words of Lakoff and Johnson (1980, p. 5) “understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another” remains a useful description of metaphor. In other words, we comprehend target domain A as source domain B. Making sense of a metaphor is done by mapping salient properties (and where possible: relations between those properties) from source to target. Importantly, the mapping is to be understood as including salient connotations adhering to the source and also typical emotional responses to it (Forceville 1996). Before dwelling on the goal of this paper –PMB’s independence speech, it is imperative we bring to the fore, the nitty-gritty of the term, Political Discourse.

 Politics, obviously in societies today ride on language as a tool. Thorne (2008) as well as Taiwo (2014) are of the position that language is the most essential tool that politicians use to influence the thoughts of the people. The UK Essay (2013) elaborates on the power of language that “language is a powerful and emotive stimulant dangerous in the hands of a skilled orator with an ambivalent or perilous personal agenda. In any political discourse such as inaugurals, valedictory campaign and independence such as PMB’s 56th independence speech among others, language is used to appeal to attitudes and emotions that are already within the listener. Van Dijk (1998b) opines that the first observation that needs to be made about political discourse is that it is not a genre but a class of genres defined by a social domain, namely that of politics. In the same way that scientific discourse, educational discourse, media and legal discourse represent the classes of discourse genre, government deliberations, parliamentary debates, party programmes and speeches by politicians are also among the many genres that belong to the domain of politics.

 Political Discourse is a wide and diverse set of discourses or genres or registers, such as: policy papers ministerial speeches, government press releases or press conferences, parliamentary discourse, party manifestoes electoral speeches and so forth. They are all characterized by the fact that they are spoken or written by or for primary political actors – members of the government or the opposition, members of parliament, leaders of political parties and candidates for office (cf. Al.Faki 2013). In a nutshell, Political Discourse Analysis (PDA) covers a wide range of subject matter. But it concentrates on the issues of power, control, domination and conflict (Schriffrin, Tannen and Hamilton, 2001). The bone of contention in this paper is neither any schematic structure or Discourse strategies used in Political discourses investigated in Ademilokun (2015), Alo (2012), Gunta & Karapetjana (2009), Nwogu (1990) and Taiwo (2010) among others, but a metaphorical analysis of the cognitive and conceptual inclinations in PMB’s 56^th independence speech.

 As a matter of fact, there is a sense in which metaphors and concepts are integrated to determine the total experience of a society. As expressed by Langer (1948, p. 3), metaphors are integrated at various levels of experience and they constitute one potent tool for the formulation and transmission of experiences but are in themselves structured by events and experiences (Lakoff and Johnson 1980, p. 83). Medubi (2003, p. 312) defines metaphor as an activity that sees one concept in terms of another, with the figurative meaning or image serving as access to the literal meaning. The essence of it is when a precise word is lacking to designate a novel meaning a speaker might resort to the powers of logical analogy, and choose a word denoting something else which is a presentational symbol for the thing he is to be taken literally or figuratively. Medubi, (ibid) further stresses that seeing or rather understanding in metaphor is an abstractive process whereby common forms between related or unrelated concepts are perceived to create novel meaning. Thus, she presents a striking evidence of natural language use and how easily a concept is conveyed through words or pictures that represent a wide variety of conceptions. For instance, through metaphor in clichés used by political office holders, many ideas are embraced and novel meanings are created. More recent developments in the field of metaphor analysis discussed by Lakoff and Johnson (1980), Lakoff (1987) and the conceptual integration theory of Turner and Fauconnier (1997, 2000, 2002), Ruiz de Menduza (2003), Dirven (2002) both of which we have employed in this study.

Method of Data Gathering

 The primary source of the speech delivered by the Nigerian President Mohammadu Buhari was the live recording of the speech using a tape recorder. The speech is also available on different social media and the internet. The transcribed speech was identified in fifty-paragraphs as outlined by the author. The transcription was followed with a careful identification of the expressions which have over the years appeared in the different speeches delivered by our presidents. These clichés were analysed theoretically taking cues from Lakoff (1987) in his metaphor and conceptual integration theory of Turner and Fauconnier (2002).

Data Presentation and Analyses

 The data are word choices, phrases, and clauses as clichés in a speech of fifty paragraphs and about three thousand word s delivered on the 1st of October, 2016. The key watch words will be metaphorically analyzed under the guideline outlined earlier in this study.

 Economic recession in Nigeria has been acknowledged by PMB himself painting different pictures or appearances of poverty as a result of the gross dearth in resources from the governments: local, state or federal. According to PMB uppermost in the minds of Nigerians, home and abroad today is the economic crisis. The economic recession for many individuals and families is real. For some it means not being able to pay school fees, i.e., RECESSION is INABILITY TO PAY SCHOOL FEES. Evidences are there that many Nigerians have been living above their income during the era of surplus and thus have overgrown the terminus of poverty. To them in this new era, it is poverty for them, not being able to pay their children’s school fees. For others it is not being able to afford the high cost of food (rice and millet) or the high cost of local or international travel, and for many of our young people the recession means joblessness, sometimes after graduating from university or polytechnic. In those latter cases we can say RECESSION is HIGH COST of FOOD STUFF and also RECESSION is JOBLESSNESS. The source, therefore, of their poverty is the recession in the national economy. Another face of recession is the discomfort meeting Nigerians in the area of insecurity.

 The very common expressions used by politicians in Nigeria include phrases such as “we are MAKING PROGRESS”. For instance PMB says “on security, we have made progress”. Regimes in Nigeria have fought vehemently to promote unity and peace in the nation which is geographically, religiously and linguistically divided. Thus, any fresh-air of PEACE is PROGRESS. The President assumed that the fight with Boko Haram was over because of a brief interlude of inaction from the deadly religious sect. According to PMB, “Boko Haram was defeated by last December – only resorting to cowardly attacks on soft targets, killing innocent men, women and children”. In the expression of PMB, a brief QUIETNESS from the enemies is DEFEAT. Thus, SILENCE is DEFEAT. Contrary to his presuppositions the brief period of silence was used by the sect to reinforce and to begin a counter attack on innocent and vulnerable citizens of Nigeria. The senses drawn from the expression above are those of DEFEAT and a REPRISAL. The joy of victory was short-lived after other attacks on innocent citizens were recorded.

 Another common attitude of politicians in Nigeria to the people is that of the master and the servant. The master is always right, come what may. Politicians expect the masses to praise and worship them always and not to criticize their activities. Hero-worshipping is characteristically an unexpressed motif in Nigeria. The cognitively interpreted metaphors from the presidential speech include “NIGERIANS should THANK our gallant men of the Armed Forces and Police for rescuing large areas of the country captured by insurgents”. The gratitude is expedient to the president who has forgotten that the military is responsible for the territorial sovereignty of the nation. The military is saddled statutorily to protect the country from external attacks and illegal occupation of the territories. Thus GALLANTRY is SERVICE and MILITARY is SOVEREIGNTY. The GALLANTRY of the armed forces is equal to SAFETY for the masses. Now, residents in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa States, as well as several neighbouring states go about their daily businesses in relative safety when the president was delivering this speech. The president and his ilks before him have always identified with public places such as mosques, churches, market places, etc., in reasonable safety.

The various insurgent groups have been crippling the nation. In other words, INSURGENCY is a CRIPPLING element. Moreover, the SCOURGE of CORRUPTION and dependence on importation are also crippling elements. Therefore, CORRUPTION is a CRIPPLING element. Earlier heads of state in Nigeria have been heard to have used the term scourge and cankerworm, to describe the demise of righteousness and impunity in the Nigerian political arena. The metaphors that have frequently been chosen to describe economic misappropriation in Nigeria include scourge, cankerworm, disease, fabrics’ eater among others. The POLITY is therefore FABRICS, being eaten very deeply into by the CORRUPTION which is a CANKERWORM.

If there is a setback caused over the years by negligence of rural areas and mass exodus of young men and women from the villages during the oil boom and excess crude era in Nigeria, poor aqua-culture and rural development are two causes. Poor aqua-culture is implied by PMB as cause of scarcity of fish and other agro-based produce from the rural areas. Thus RECESSION is SCARCITY. Scarcity of fish is a sign of a long term neglect of Aqua-culture while the massive evacuation of rural areas due to poor infrastructural development in the rural areas is the cause of scarcity of locally grown crops such as rice, beans, millet and even cash crops such as cocoa, cotton, groundnuts, cashew nuts, sugarcane and coffee among other agro-based farm produce. RECESSION is FOOD SCARCITY. NEGLIGENCE of aqualife and agrolife is a result of importation of rice and other staple foods whose ban has resulted in inflation of prices of food stuff in the market. Stoppage of importation has been the cause of the recession being identified as the explanation of the present economic hardship.

 Poor state of power and energy in Nigeria has made many artisans become “okada” riders. In other words, many Nigerians are out of their jobs because multi-nationals have begun to exit the country because of the huge sum of money they spend to energize their engines and electrically-powered machineries. Poor POWER supply is equal to POOR economic GROWTH. The clichés here include poor power and energy. This expression has been over flogged by even the past heads of governments in Nigeria. Promises to restore regular power, its supply and distribution have become a national item in the mouths of each president Nigeria has had in the last ten years. Apart from being a cliché, the metaphor POWER is economic GROWTH catches attention in this scheme.

 Poor state of federal roads across the nation according to PMB is crippling transportation of farm produce and easy movement of people and other goods and services across the nation. Bad roads remain a song being sung by every government in Nigeria as it takes a huge sum of money to construct and maintain federal roads in Nigeria. The metaphor inferred from this expression is that POOR ROAD is BAD ECONOMY because of scarcity of essential commodities in their expected destinations. Poor transportation system is the bane of access to goods and services in Nigeria. It is also a major challenge to economic growth. As expatiated above bad roads are complemented by non-availability of mass transit auto-mobiles which would cushion the effect of end-of-subsidy regime hardship on the masses. The immediate past regime had established the Subsidy Reinvestment Programme (SURE-P) which was to cushion the effect of subsidy removal from the downstream oil sector after which the premium spirit now sells at a hundred and forty five naira (N145). The cliché here discussed implies that POOR TRANSPORTATION means WIDE COMMUNICATION GAP across cities in the country. It also amounts to POOR COMMUNICATION network among the states of the federation.

 When the people are unable to enjoy the third NEED of nature which is SHELTER, the government is a failure. That is probably why all the heads of government have always mentioned HOUSING as a key project to be executed across the nation. Apart from being a popular promise made to the masses, the metaphorical implication of the expression is the VULNERABILITY to attacks and diseases as a result of lack of good ACCOMMODATION and the resultant aftermath on governance. A people who are in secure is equal to a government that has failed. Therefore, HOUSING is SECURITY.

On the whole PMB recognizes that where all the points discussed above thrive, there would be an unfriendly business environment. In Nigeria today, major foreign business expatriates and multi-national companies are being persuaded to return to the country. In the following sections attempts have been made to identify the various clichés and their metaphorical implications to English studies.

Metaphors, Source and Target Domain Analyses

 This section takes a cursory look at the different segments of the Presidential speech from the perspective of SOURCE and TARGET domains. Lakoff and Johnson’s theory (1980, p. 5) provides that a concept or an ideology can be understood and experienced in terms of another. In other words, the clichés identified as topical in PMB’s speech can serve as a useful description of metaphors relating to the Nigerian polity, culture and false ideology. These discussions have been done taking a cue from Lakoff and Johnson (ibid) by adopting the target domain A as source domain B pattern. An audacious attempt is made here to make sense of political expressions as metaphors by mapping salient properties of the words from a source to target domains. The mappings, however are to be understood as including salient connotations adhering to the source and also typical emotional responses to it as exemplified by Forceville (1996).

Table 1. Source and Target analyses of PMB’s utterances

GROUP 1	GENERIC SPACE	GROUP 2
	You know I am trying to do
	the right things for our country
Input Space 1 (Source)	Input Space 2 (emergent)	Input 3 (target)
Nigerians yearned for a	President makes promises	Despite the disappointing hardship
messiah (An incorruptible	The government intends to	Economic recession and inflation, loss of purchasing power
leader) who will turn the	make business environ-	Devalued currency, the naira
economy around and flush	ment more friendly….	The president appeals to
out corruption from the		the emotions of Nigerians and seeks sympathy for
Land		his failure
	Blended Space
	Let me commend Nigerians
	for their patience, steadfastness and perseverance…(in economic recession)

 

 In the blend, above, the source is scriptural. The bible records in the book of Genesis Chapter 3:15 where God promised to remedy the entrance of sin into the world through a future descendant of the woman. The messiah in the Nigerian dreamland is President Mohammad Buhari. There was a premeditated readiness to enthrone a messiah who will speedily undo what earlier governments have done wrongly. This messiah would correct the wrongs of the past as soon as he is sworn in. In the first input space, the people had yearned for a man of integrity like PMB and in the second input space, President Mohammadu Buhari promises a conducive business environment for Nigerians and foreign investors. The third space is a rather unfortunate scenario which is not unusual in Nigeria. Nigerian leaders have always appealed to the innocent emotions of Nigerians. In this case PMB rides on his hitherto acclaimed integrity and trust reposed on him by the electorate by saying “you know I am trying to do the right things for our country”. PMB takes for granted the trust which the masses have in him.

Economy-related Clichés and Metaphors

 Other salient areas of interest in this paper focus on the economy, the race for presidency, security issues, food security, power and energy among other aspects of national life in Nigeria. The term economic recession is followed by other striking lexical items in the utterances of PMB. The input, the blend and the output of the expression is drawn in the table below.

Table 2. Input and Output analyses of economy-related Clichés and Metaphors

GROUP 1	GENERIC SPACE	GROUP 2
Economy	Recession	Inflation
Race	Run	Contest
Security	Insecurity	Insurgency/Militancy
Food insecurity	Agriculture neglect	Hunger
Power and energy	Pipeline Vandalism	Epileptic Power supply
Input Space 1 (Source)	Input Space 2 (emergent)	Input 3 (target)
Economy	Economic Crisis	School fees, high cost of food, high cost of local, international travels, international trade, etc.
Race	Contest	Commitment, Perseverance
Security	Insecurity	Insurgency, militancy, kidnapping, etc.
Food insecurity	Food scarcity, i.e., rice	Inflation in prices of food stuff, etc
Power and energy	Power cut/blackout	High cost of petrol, electronics, generators, etc

 The Race and Clichés

 The ideology of considering contests for election in Nigeria as a race is not without a hidden agenda. Every athlete seeks a price and therefore prepares for the track and field events. These preparations they do by working on their physical fitness, attitude, perseverance and energy. Any athlete without the determination to succeed will not win any trophy. PMB says he decided to RUN because he knows what GOOD GOVERNMENT means. Like every other politician would reason, he sees himself as the only candidate who can give Nigeria the desired good governance. He has the monopoly of good governance which is the only way to ensure PROSPERITY and abundance for all. Thus, with his COMMITMENT, the present state of RECESSION will fizzle out in no time according to him. PMB is charting a CORRECTIVE COURSE because previous governments got it wrong. This is a peculiar impression of every new government in Nigeria and in Africa at large and that is why they think about remaining in power indefinitely.

The model here triggers other models of societal expectations that conveniently map the polity on the people and their orientations which differ as a multi-ethnic nation where the tug for supremacy, political hegemony from slogans such as “born to rule” and self-confidence have inbued the president with the legitimacy of claims such as the thought of being the “messiah” needed by the country. There might be so much sense of togetherness in the expression “…to ensure prosperity and abundance for all”. The word “all” indicates inclusion or membership of a family. The model of COUNTRY AS FAMILY metaphor is represented in the table below and is triggered as the source of that ideal that gives rise to the ideology of “who can deliver the people?” This model is explicated in the table below.

Table 3. Metaphor and concept of family

Family (Source) Country (Target)

Family gives birth to children	Country adopts children
Family raises children	Country trains children
Family nurtures children	Country nurtures citizens
Family works for well-being of children	Country feeds all families
Family provides support, help, etc	Country supports, sustains families
Family is responsible for its members	Country is responsible for its families
Family expects returns from children	Country expects returns from citizens

 The ideals in the picture painted in the table above drive the president’s use of the word “all” to refer to Nigerians. The implication of the COUNTRY as a FAMILY metaphor portends that every citizen of a nation is tied to another by blood relationship through inter-ethnic marriages, state of residence or employment and other inevitable reasons for cohabiting with other Nigerians. The bond has become very strong since independence so much that Nigeria has one army, and one national football team among other sports. All of these unite Nigeria as a nation than divide the country.

 The use of inclusive pronouns such as “I”, “us”, “we” and “our” in the speech of PMB gives a singular reference to bonafide NIGERIANS as a FAMILY. For instance he says, “…temporary problems should not blind or divert US from the corrective course this government has charted for OUR nation”. His choice of pronouns is to ensure an unbiased representation of the country. The mapping of the pronominal choices and its implication is drawn below.

 Generic Space

 Agent

 Country

 Family

Input Space 1 Input Space 2

Family Country

Nurtures Nurtures

Children Citizens

 Blend

 Nigeria

 Nurtures

 Children

Conceptual Integration in the Country as a Family and the inclusive pronominals

The blended scheme above suggests that the nucleus of a nation is protected by the maternity which the citizens share and the ties of consanguinity which the people enjoy. From the perspective of relationships maintained by the president of the nation who assumes the position of a father in a family and who ensures that the children lack nothing we digress to examine another key sector of the nation’s existence.

Security-related Clichés and Metaphors in Nigerian English

 In Nigeria today, certain words have entered into the lexicon of English language spoken and written in Nigeria. A major threat that had almost engrossed the nation before the coming to power of PMB is the sect referred to as “boko-haram” which literally means “western education is a sin”. The sect is a genocidal criminal movement led by an Islamist extremist, Abubakar Shekau, who has vowed to destroy every Christian school in Nigeria, and to carry out terrorist attacks on Nigerian government, police and government officials. The adventure of this terrorist group in Nigeria has contributed immensely to the security-related words in English language spoken and written in Nigeria. A model is also formed for the analyses of lexical items on security-related expressions in the table below. The term security is followed by other striking lexical items in the utterances of PMB. The input, the blend and the output of the expression is drawn in the table below.

Table 4. Analyses of Security-related metaphors

GROUP 1	GENERIC SPACE	GROUP 2
	Security
	Safety
Insurgency	Armed Forces,	Militancy
Boko Haram		Niger Delta Avengers
Insurgents	Progress	Kidnappers
Herdsmen/cattle rustling/farmers	tackle	Ritualists
Cowardice	captured	Surrender
	Defeat	Post-amnesty programme
Unlawful challenge	Pipeline vandalism
	Blow-up of gas pipe lines

The table above presents a few of the clichés on the security matters read to Nigerians by PMB. The words are significant because they have become household as they are seen on pages of national dailies in Nigeria. In group one, there are words that relate to the insecurity sources in Northern Nigeria whereas in group two registers of the sources of unrest in southern Nigeria are itemized. The two models are blended in the middle with words that relay the aftermath of the encounters between the Federal Government of Nigeria and the two enemy groups to Nigerian security.

Food-related Clichés and Metaphors

 The President also spoke about food- insecurity as one possibility in coming years as a threat in Nigeria. PMB said the FG in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and the Central Bank are working assiduously to encourage local production of rice, maize, sorghum, millet and soya beans. In fact, to PMB self-sufficiency in staple foods is a fight against food scarcity that is looming. The network of food-related issues is drawn below.

Table 5 . Implications on Food-related clichés and Metaphors

GROUP 1 Source	GENERIC SPACE	GROUP 2 Target
Embargo on Importation	Food Scarcity	Self-sufficiency
Encouragement of local production of staple food	Mass Production of rice, etc.	Self-sufficiency
Forex trade discouraged by high exchange rate to Dollars	Foreign earnings saved	Industrial revival
Rain-dependent agriculture	Seasonal Farming	Water-Harvesting schemes throughout the country
Drought in the north	Food scarcity	Irrigation
Neglect of agriculture	Food scarcity	Focus on Agriculture
Water resources Bill	National Water resources Policy	Improved management of water and irrigation development
Twelve River-Basin	Commercialization	Support crop production

 

Apart from the support intended to give to crop production, there is the intention to support power and energy through hydro-power generation. Thus the metaphor, WATER is ENERGY in this scheme. Abundance of water is sufficient hydropower generation for some parts of Nigeria. WATER is also AGRICULTURE, without which there would be scarcity of food and electric power generation. The lexical items related to power and energy matters include Solar Power Project, hydro, wind and energy mix. There is also CORRUPTION is a CANCER cliché in Nigeria. In fact it is referred to as a CANCERWORM which has eaten very deeply into our national system. The cankerworm corrodes the fabric of government. In other words, GOVERNMENT is FABRIC which is eaten by the insect. CORRUPTION is a RIVER which corrodes the ECONOMY and wellbeing of the nation. To join the fight against corruption, ARREST of several judges by PMB is an APPEAL to the judges to join the fight against corruption. There are numerous ways in which metaphors are expressed unknowingly by users of the English language in Second Language Contexts. We have attempted in this paper to identify some expressions whose in-depth meanings contrast sharply with the phenomenon or concepts which they represent. Most importantly, it is a fact that such expressions are representational.

Frequency of Clichés and Metaphors

 This section takes a count of the lexical items and metaphors that occurred more frequently in the speech of the president.

Table 6. Analyses of Frequency of Clichés and Metaphors

 

S/N	Frequency of Clichés and Metaphors
	Clichés	Metaphors	Typology	Percentage
1.	Recession	Poverty	Economy	18%
2.	Insurgency/Insecurity	Progress	Warfare	22%
3.	Transportation	Good/Bad roads	Infrastructure	7%
4.	Corruption	Corruption	Politics	41%
5.	Electricity	Poor Power	Energy	6%
6.	Hunger	Food scarcity	Others	6%
Total	Several others	Several others	Others	100%

 

 The table above summarizes the categories of clichés and metaphors uttered by PMB in his speech. Words such as poverty, progress, good or bad roads, corruption, poor or epileptic power-supply represent the metaphors used to represent the state of the nation recession, the plague of the nation in insurgency, the disease afflicting the nation as corruption and the disorders in the system crippling the economy by power outage and hunger in the land. The table reveals that PMB has concentrated more on corruption and insurgency because they account for 41% and 22% respectively on the table. Following these two aspects of governance, are the economy and the infrastructural development of the nation which account for 18% and 7% attention respectively as given to them by the president. Electricity and food have become scarce relatively in Nigeria because the attention given to them has been insignificant considering the 6% attention recorded above. Scarcity of electricity has frustrated large and small scale industries in Nigeria, particularly in areas affected by pipe-line vandalism by the Niger Delta Avengers (NDA). Activities of these militant group and others coupled with insurgency in the north have taken the attention of the president.

Concluding Remarks

 This article has taken an objective appraisal of governance in Nigeria with particular interest in the choices of words made in the speech rendered by President Mohammad Buhari in Nigeria’s 56^th independence day celebration. Since the focus of the article was on metaphors which appeared as clichés in the Nigerian political history and leadership over the years this paper examined PMB’s linguistic ingenuity and tact in winning the seemingly lost Nigerians to the fate of economic recession and other socio-economic imbroglio.

 The speech of PMB therefore investigated factors defining the polity and the challenges to be surmounted by his new government. We find in this study that metaphors have actually been used for its right purposes; that in a political discourse of this kind, that PMB has carefully chosen clichés for ideological purposes because he intended to activate unconscious emotional associations and thereby contributing to myth creation in the Nigerian polity – NIGERIA WILL BE GREAT AGAIN ANTHEM. Thus there is yet another rehearsal of the known syndromes in governance making a mental representation of those naughty issues.

 Chief of the issues as shown in the table 6 on frequency is on corruption. Economic recession and insecurity follow in the order of preference to PMB. These three areas of national life dominate in the data collected in this study. Transportation and food supply did not take priority positions in the administration of PMB in 2016. The metaphors and other expressions identified in this study have expatiated the choices made by PMB in his speech. These choices have also revealed the agenda of Mr. President because of tHe circumstances within which he found himself.

From economic recession to the unending state of insecurity in the nation as well as the musketeering scourge of corruption and dependence on importation, the appeal of PMB has been made to explain poor aqua-culture and rural development, poor state of power and energy in Nigeria, poor state of federal roads across the nation, poor housing and infrastructural programmes and on the whole is the unfriendly business environment in Nigeria, repugnant to foreign investors. We conclude that different worldviews have been communicated persuasively through metaphorical expressions tactically employed in this political discourse; the 56^th Independence Day speech of PMB.

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This article is published in ALQALAM: A Journal of Language and Literary Studies, FUGUS, Volume 1, Issue 2 - June 2026