Hate-Speech Morphology and Divisive Tendencies in Nigeria

Cite this article as: Owoeye, S. T., &Oluwaniyi, F. O. (2026). Hate-speech morphology and divisive tendencies in Nigeria. Sokoto Journal of Linguistics and Communication Studies (SOJOLICS), 2(1), 521-534. https://doi.org/10.36349/sojolics.2026.v02i01.043

By

Samuel Tuesday Owoeye

Department of Languages and General Studies

Covenant University, Ota, Nigeria

sam.owoeye1009@gmail.com

&

Favour Oluwatosin Oluwaniyi

Department of Languages and General Studies

Covenant University, Ota, Nigeria,

favour.oluwaniyipgs@stu.cu.edu.ng

Abstract

In this study, we embark on a morphological analysis of the various coinages by Nigerians to highlight the hate mindset and the divisive tendencies that have existed among them in recent times. To do this, we selected five major Nigerian-based online media which are The Punch Online, Sahara Reporters, The Nation online, Premium Times and The Vanguard Online. Hate morphological coinages by online news commenters within one year (June 2024 – May 2025) are extracted from the online media and an analysis was done on them using the framework of analogous morphology. Our findings show a preponderance use of the morphological processes of blending and compounding both at intra and inter-linguistic levels. The study also points to the possibility of the divisive lines in Nigeria being ethno-political rather than essentially religious.

Keywords: Hate speech, analogous morphology, word coinages, Nigeria, online media

1.0 Introduction

The advent of online discussion fora has made it possible for people all over the world to hide their identity “in whole or in part” (p. 11), to express themselves with little or no restrictions (Fabienne et al, 2017). Nigeria, a West African country is unarguably a divided nation along ethnic, political and religious lines and these divisions have continued to negatively affect her national development. Since independence, national cohesion has been marred by those differences resulting in hate mindset along perceivable fault lines. Hate mindset produces hate speech which is broadly defined as any speech production that disparages a specific person or a group of people (Mrabure, 2016). Several Nigerian scholars have studied hate speech from a sociopolitical point of view (Osaghae et al, 2005, Joel, 2013; Rasaq et al, 2017; Ugbechie, 2017). In recent times, online commenters on national news posted by popular online news media have become extremely bold in the production of hate word coinages that appear to be libelous to national personalities, tribes, and political groups.

Any inflammatory rhetoric or writing, gesture or conduct that is geared towards defaming the religion, ethnicity, gender, origin, race, sexual orientation, ideology or disability of an individual or group is classified as hate speech and it is usually orchestrated to incite violence or prejudicial action against its victim(s), with the goal to intimidate, blackmail and coerce such victim, and to set one party up against another. Hate speech is characterized by abusive, intemperate, slanderous or base language or insinuations or innuendoes designed to provoke violent reactions or emotions. It is opined that hate speech includes:

(a) all dissemination of ideas based on racial or ethnic superiority or hatred, by whatever means; (b) incitement to hatred, contempt or discrimination against members of a group on grounds of their race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin; (c) threats or incitement to violence against persons or groups on the grounds in (b) above; (d) expression of insults, ridicule or slander of persons or groups or justification of hatred, contempt or discrimination on the grounds in (b) above, when it clearly amounts to incitement to hatred or discrimination; (e) participation in organizations and activities which promote and incite racial discrimination. (The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of |Racial Discrimination, 2013, p. 4)

There have been linguistic studies on coinages in Nigeria both at morphological and syntactic levels (Igboanusi 2002; Abdulahi-Idiagbon & Olaniyi; 2011, Mbisike, 2016). While most of these studies concentrated on what is known as Nigerian English and slangs, to the best of our knowledge, research attention has not been paid to the interface between mindset and the mental lexicon as it relates to morphological coinages. In this paper, we undertake a lexemic analysis of hate word coinages such as presidiot, biafraud, yorobber, thienubu. Nizooria, foolani, Mumhead, cownuetc, which have been wittily coined by Nigerians commentaters on online news reports. What kind of mindset and what are the morphological features at the root of the coining of these hate words? That is the overriding research question that this study seeks to answer. Our data come from five online news media, viz: The Punch Online, Sahara Reporters, The Nation online, Premium Times and The Vanguard Online. The hate word coinages that are analyzed are those we extracted from these news media between June 2024 and May 2025, a period of one year. The coinages are analyzed using analogical morphology model. Our findings are discussed, and conclusions are subsequently drawn from both linguistic and civic perspectives

2.0 Literature Review

Hate speech is not a new phenomenon and so, it has attracted the attention of researchers from different disciplines. However, the review of literature done here is limited to the linguistic attention the phenomenon has received generally and in Nigeria in particular. The morphological process of coinage and the framework of analogous morphology are also discussed in order to situate the theoretical background of the study.

2.1 Linguistics and Hate Speech

Hate speech of whatever type and motive is conceived, encoded and propagated in a language. Therefore, understanding the linguistics of hate speech is an integral aspect of this study. Some studies have focused on exploring the language of hate speech from a computer perspective (Ott, & Hancock, 2011; Fornaciari &Poesio, 2011; Balcerzak & Jaworski, 2015). For example, Balcerzak and Jaworski (2015), hypothesising that “text belonging to fringe ideologies contains more adjectives and adverbs than news texts’ and …fringe ideologies contain longer sentences than strictly-informative sources’ (p. 147), investigated the use of word forms in differentiating fringe group codes from “strictly-informative sources” (p. 145). Their conclusion thatthe frequency of adjectives and adverbs gives clue for distinguishing between the language of mainstream media and fringe political entities is quite exciting. Furthermore, focusing on phrases and clauses, Feng et al (2012) employed stylometric approach to uncover deception and opinion spam.

Butler (1997) is one of the interesting studies that explored the relationship between linguistics and hate speech paradigm. The study specifically questioned the role of performativity in deciding hate speech in race and gender discourse while McFarlane (2012), on the other hand, investigated hate speech from literary perspective. The author examined the role of citation in shaping “the future of linguistic communities, allowing the use of hate speech to be curtailed and changed” (p. 147) in narration. This was with a view to circumventing what he termed as ‘wounding words’ in literary language.

Similarly, studies on the semantic and pragmatic aspects of hate speech have been undertaken by researchers (see Lewis, 2014). Carney (2014) explored the forensic linguistic dimension to understanding hate speech cases. Lewis tested the perlocutionary-based theories of cognitive linguistics in determining the notion of admiration and offensiveness of hate speech, whereas for Carney, linguistic resources can be deployed to determine the “hurtfulness or harmfulness of the speaker’s words…” (p. 325) in courtrooms through speech acts and politeness theories. Similarly, Ozarslan (2014) subjected hate speech to Critical Discourse Analysis and concluded that hate speech, in all intent and purpose, is an ‘act’. The author thus concluded that media (whether new, traditional or social) should be used for ‘humane actions’ that will ‘contribute to transformation of the mentality of the users’ (p. 71). It is interesting to note that the last three studies presented above studied hate speech by investigating the effect of linguistic manipulations on the target group(s).

Rejecting the keyword-approach to analyze hate speech, Saleem et al (2016) employed content-identifying approach to examine hateful speeches on online social platforms. They used logistic regression to test comments from relevant Reddit groups against other posts and comments from other platforms. They found that racist language, cultural stereotyped language and historical-context language were dominantly employed to convey hatred and contempt. These linguistic colourations contribute to the understanding of the relationship between language and hate speech. In a different, but related study, Posselt (2017) viewed the relation between language and hate speech from the dimension of understanding the violent force of language used. His strongly argued point that “language and violence cannot be separated from each other readily” (p. 9), is second to no known truth. Importantly, the author viewed hate speech as a form of violence that is inimical to the social and cultural cohesion of any modern society. Similarly, Schmidt & Wiegand (2017) examined how to easily recognize kinds of hate speech utterances ‘…using natural language processing’ (p. 1). The subjection of hate speech to natural language processing is a subliminal (as well as conscious) acceptance of the role of linguistics in propagating hate speech.

2.2 Linguistic Studies of Hate Speech in Nigeria

Nigeria, being an anomalous nation that is made up of over 165 million inhabitants with about 350 ethnic groups, different in culture, language or history, is very vulnerable to hate speeches (Ekanola, 2006). For instance, Osaghae &Suberu (2005) and Joel (2013) are of the view that the remote cause of the Nigerian Civil war of 1967 to 1970 was as a result of the violent exchange of words between Igbo traders and Hausa/Fulani traders in Northern Nigeria. This is no wonder Kayambazinthu& Moyo (2002) conceive hate speeches as wars waged on others by means of word. In Nigeria today, pockets of hate speech are found in almost every facet of human activity but most pronounced during political campaigns. According to Ezeibe (2013), hate speech has been elevated to the status of an election strategy, and has become an important aspect of electioneering campaign, with numerous election related conflict in Africa being credited to hate speech. Also, politicians employ smear campaign with a view of discrediting, damaging and blackmailing their opponent (Opeibi, 2005), resulting in campaign rhetoric beset by hate speeches. Language, being the major tool for propagating hate speeches, can be used to influence behaviour and action to such an extent as to generate and inspire hate. It is a most viable weapon for hate speech today. English language is the major language used for dissemination of hate speeches with a visible content in Hausa language in the Nigerian social media space (Ezeibe. 2013).

Several Nigerian scholars have examined the role of language in the construction of hate speeches. Okafor & Alabi (2017) investigate the centrality of language in their speech act analysis of hate speech, and opine that general elections in Nigeria, specifically the 2015 election, is characterized by inflammatory rhetoric and verbal attacks on perceived political opponent that are capable of truncating the country’s embryonic democracy. The authors reveal the pragmatic import of the speeches, vis-à-vis their illocutionary acts and perlocutionary effects, and conclude that speeches uttered by different speakers perform both explicit and implicit functions with embedded meanings that portray intimidation, threat, and incite violence. Joel (2012) observes the shifting roles of aggressors and victims in relation to ethnicity in hate speeches within Nigeria, and notes that in the north, hate speech is often accompanied by acts of violence, while in the South, hate speech is often subtle and characterized by stereotyping and abusive denotation of mannerisms of other ethnic groups, particularly Northerners.

 

2.3 The Morphology of Word Coinage

Word coinage is a morphological phenomenon whereby new words are formed either through rule-based processes or on analogy basis. A coined word becomes a neologism if it can easily be accepted by a speech community as capable of becoming attested. When a word is coined, and it is viewed as unattestable by a speech community, such word is described as an occasionalism. So, it can be argued that word coinage encapsulates the morphological phenomena of neologism and occasionalism. While neologisms are considered to be newly formed words that are based on productive morphological rules, occasionalism are viewed as newly creatively formed words that are not rule-based (Bauer, 2001). Although some linguists do not see occasionalisms as deserving serious morphological attention, others have argued that creative words coined using unproductive morphological processes deserve equal attention with their rule-based counterparts. Lieber (1992) sees occasionalisms as coinages that “will always draw attention to themselves which will be perceived by native speakers as odd, amusing, repulsive and or remarkable” (p. 3). He further remarks that “they are not necessarily to be taken seriously by a theory of word formation.” (p. 6) However, Muhleisen (2010) is of the opinion that creatively coined words that are analogous should not be dismissed as if “they do not contribute anything worthy of note to the general word formation pattern” (p. 96).

3.0 Methodology

This mainly qualitative and descriptive research is based on the hate word coinages produced by online commenters which the researchers extracted from the online versions of three Nigerian newspapers which are The Punch Newspaper, The Nation Newspaper, Vanguard Newspaper, and two purely online Nigerian-oriented news magazines which are Premium Times and Sahara Reporters. The hate word coinages found in the selected online news media between June 2024 – May 2025 (a period of one calendar year) were extracted for the purpose of analogous morphological analysis. The choice of the five online news platforms was not arbitrarily made. At the point of selection in June 2024, the researchers observed that news items posted on the five selected dailies attracted more commenters than others not considered for this study. The number of articles read as well as the number of comments encountered are many and so, it is irrelevant to the researchers the specific numbers, the research method being qualitative. Similarly, our criteria for the extraction of what we observed as hate coinages by commenters is singularly as dictated by The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of |Racial Discrimination as earlier cited in the introductory section of this work. Also the procedure for excluding duplicates is as indicated in the data presentation and analysis section.

4.0 Theoretical Framework: Analogous Morphology

Analogous morphology is generally considered as a word-formation phenomenon that is not necessarily rule-based. It has been observed that in different languages, speakers tend to coin new words that are not necessarily a subject of established morphological rules in such languages. For instance, the word ‘Republicant’ was once coined in the United States to describe the Republicans as never-do-well politicians – call it hate speech. There does not seem to be a known English regular rule-based derivational word-formation process that could possibly account for the coinage of this example; it can only be analyzed using analogy with English blended coinages such as ‘brunch’, ‘smog’ and ‘foolosopher’ (Gries: 2017). The coined word could be said to have been coined from two existing words ‘Republicans’ and ‘cannot.’ Since compounding and blending are possible morphological processes in English, then words such as Republicant’ in English will naturally make sense through analogy. In morphology, analogy is often associated with creativity which is clearly different from productivity. While productivity rely on regular rule-based processes and leads to neologisms, creativity, on the other hand, leads to occasionalisms (Motsch, 1987) which are better studied within analogous morphology.

Motsch (1987) argues that although “the creation of new words presupposes rules” (p. 24), it should not be taken for granted that rules come to bear as a result of observable similarities in vocabulary items of a given language. It goes to show, therefore, that while there can be regular new words formed using regular morphological processes; there are exceptionally irregular new creative words that will be the products of morphological analogy. Van Marle (1990) observes that morphological analogy can result out of three situations: (1) the incidental actuation of existing derivational patterns, (2) the coining-into-existence of new derivational patterns and (3) non-derivational coining, particularly affix substitution. The analyses done in this study take into cognizance these three circumstances of morphological analogy.

4.1 Data Presentation and Analysis

Data collection was done manually through a process of reading news items posted on the selected news media together with the comments posted by readers. In the process of going through the comments, the researchers extracted tokens of what they considered to be hate word coinages by different commenters. During the twelve months of data collection, forty-five (45) coinages were extracted as shown in Table 1. Interestingly, as observed by the researchers, each of the coinages is found in all the selected newspapers because it was glaring that the same commenters who coined them went from one platform to the other to peddle their hate messages, using word coinages. For the purpose of analysis, the coinages are serialized and labeled in Table 1 as HC (Hate Coinage) from 1 to 45. The serialization is in chronological order - according to the time the researchers found them within the period of data collection:

Table 1: Hate word coinages extracted from five selected online media

S/N	Hate coinages	S/N	Hate coinages	S/N	Hate coinages
HC1	NiZOOria	HC17	Senathieves	HC33	Cowminder-in-Chief
HC2	NiZOOrians	HC18	representathieves	HC34	Herd of State
HC3	mumuhead	HC19	Jonadaft	HC35	Executhieves
HC4	foolani	HC20	southwaste	HC36	Mumummadu
HC5	yorobastards	HC21	southbeast	HC37	Legislooters
HC6	Yorobber	HC22	Yorobad	HC38	Boohari
HC7	Yaribastard	HC23	doomhari	HC39	Hell Rufai
HC8	Yoropigs	HC24	yorodiabolic	HC40	El Ruffian
HC9	biafraud	HC25	Cownu	HC41	Yorobat
HC10	Yoromonkey	HC26	Thiefnubu	HC42	Buharam
HC11	Zootopia	HC27	Biafrog	HC43	Ojukwrook
HC12	Sinator	HC28	zootizen	HC44	Fayoshit
HC13	Yorobarbwire	HC29	Presidiot	HC45	Yorobadland
HC14	Mumurians	HC30	polithiefcians
HC15	Othman Dan Polio	HC31	politrickcians
HC16	Shecow	HC32	Cowmmander-in-chief

 

The extracted hate word coinages shown in Table 1 form the basis for the discussion and findings that is done in the next section.

5.0 Discussions and Findings

Following the data presented and analysed in section 5, our findings are categorized under two morphological processes of blending and compounding. The findings are as discussed heeunder.

5.1 Blending

Blending is different from compounding in the sense that in the former, the blended words are each partly represented while in the latter, the words collaborating to form a compound word are each fully represented. For instance, while ‘step-brother’ is a compound word, ‘brunch’ (breakfast + lunch) is a blend. While most blends are a product of the first part of the first contributing word and the last part of the second participating word (Yule, 2006:53), there are blends where one of the contributing word is fully represented in the joint venture (Gries, 2004: 639). For example, the blended word ‘foolosopher’ comes as a result of the fusion of ‘fool’ and ‘philosopher’ where ‘fool’ is fully represented. Out of the forty-five coinages extracted, thirty-six of them are blends. For ease of analysis, the blends are categorized under four types: hate blends directed at the nation of Nigeria and Nigerians as a whole, those directed at ethnic groups, those directed to political groups and those directed at individuals.

The hate blends directed at the nation Nigeria are HC1, HC2, HC11, HC14 and HC28. In HC1 and HC2, NiZOOria and niZOOrians are blends resulting from a fusion of ‘Nigeria/Nigerian’ and ‘zoo’ respectively. The coiners of these blends liken the nation Nigeria to a zoo and Nigerians as animals. The capitalization could be that the commenter who coined the blend wanted to lay more emphasis on the ‘zoo’ part of the coinage to the detriment of the second forming partner, ‘Nigeria/Nigerian’ as the case may be. Closely related to the HC1 and HC2 are HC14 and HC28. In HC14, the hate coiner fused ‘mumu’ and ‘Nigerians’ resulting in the blend mumurians. In Nigerian pidgin English, ‘mumu’ translates to ‘fool’ or ‘foolishness’ in the standard English. HC28, zootizen, is a blend resulting from the two words ‘zoo’ and ‘citizen.’ HC11 is another hate blend directed at Nigeria as a country. In this case, the coiner comes up with Zootopia, which is a blend arising from ‘zoo’ and ‘utopia’. Worthy of note is that, in the four hate blends just analyzed, the word ‘zoo’ is a constant variable. The reason for this is not far-fetched because, not too long ago, the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Mr Nnamdi Kanu, likened Nigeria to a zoo and by extension, Nigerians as animals living in a zoo. IPOB is an Igbo nation’s organization that seeks independence for the Igbo people who dwell in the southeastern part of Nigeria.

In the case of hate coinages aimed at debasing the major ethnic groups in Nigeria, our data contains thirteen blends which are labelled in Table 1 as HC4, HC5, HC6, HC7, HC8, HC9, HC10, HC13, HC22, HC24, HC27, HC41 and HC45. There are three ethnic groups in Nigeria referred to as the majority; they are the Hausa/Fulanis, the Igbos and the Yorubas. The three ethnic groups are captured, although not in equal proportion, in the hate blends coined by national news commenters in the selected online news outlets. Out of the thirteen hates blends aimed at denigrating the major tribes in Nigeria, only one is directed at the Hausa/Fulani tribe, which is HC4, where the coiner comes up with foolani, a blend arising from the words ‘fool’ and ‘Fulani’.

In a similar vein, out of the thirteen ethnic-related hate blends gathered, two are directed at the Igbos and they are HC9 and HC27. In HC9, biafraud was coined from the words ‘Biafra’ and ‘fraud’. The Igbos have always referred to themselves as Biafrans and there have been spirited agitations by the people from that section of the country for self-determination towards the independence of the Biafran nation. So, the coiner of the hate blend biafraud is by that coinage referring to the agitation for a Republic of Biafra as a fraud. The same Igbos also receive hate blends of biafrog(HC27), likening the race to a ‘frog’. The Yoruba ethnic group of Nigeria receive the largest share of the hate blends. Ten out of the fifteen coinages are directed at them and are morphologically analyzed as follows:    Labels  Hate blends  Contributing words

HC5  yorobastards  Yoruba + bastards

HC6  yorobber   Yoruba + robber  

HC7  yaribastard   Yoruba + bastard

HC8  yoropigs   Yoruba + pigs

HC10  yoromonkey  Yoruba + monkey

HC13  yorobarbwire  Yoruba + barbwire

HC22  yorobad   Yoruba + bad

HC24  yorodiabolic  Yoruba + diabolic

HC41  yorobat   Yoruba + bat

HC45.  Yorobadland  Yorubaland + bad

The morphological analysis above shows a painting of the Yorubas in bad light by the coiners of the blends. The Yoruba people are here nominally described as bastards, robbers, pigs, monkeys, barbwire, and bats. They are also adjectivally painted as bastard and bad.

As earlier stated, there are hate blends directed at few political groups in Nigeria by online commenters on national news. These groups include all politicians generally, the executive and the legislators. The generality of the Nigerian politicians is hatefully described in HC30 and HC31 as pothiefcians and politrickcians respectively. HC30 is a blend resulting from the two words ‘politicians’ and ‘thief’ while HC31 is another blend rooted in ‘politician’ and ‘trick’. Taken together, the coiners of the two blends are by their coinages disparagingly referring to Nigerian politicians as thieves and as persons who specialize in tricking the people. The executive arm of government also got a dose of hate blend from online commenters. In HC35, they are referred to as executhieves in a blend resulting from a morphological fusion of ‘executives’ and ‘thieves. Another group that is not spared in hateful coinages is the legislators who receive four blends namely sinator HC13, senathieves (HC17), representathieve(HC18)andlegislooters(HC37).

   

In Nigeria, there are two legislative houses at the national level: the senate and the house of representatives. The two houses are occupied by legislators saddled with the responsibilities of appropriation and law-making. By their duties, they are supposed to be distinguished and honorable personalities. However, hate blend coiners depict them as sinners (HC13), thieves (HC17 and HC18) and as looters (HC37).

Finally, on hate blends, there are eleven of them that are aimed at castigating the personalities of some notable Nigerians as shown below:

   HC3  mumuhead    mumu + Mohammed

   HC23  doomhari     doom + Buhari

   HC29  presidiot     president + idiot

   HC32  Cowmmander-in-Chief  cow + commander

   HC36  Mumummadu Buhari  mumu + Muhamadu

   HC42  Buharam     Buhari + haram

   HC19  Jonadaft     Jonathan + daft

   HC26  Thiefnubu    thief + Tinubu

   HC43  Ojucrook     Ojukwu + crook

   HC25  Cownu     cow + Kanu

   HC44  Fayoshit     Fayose + shit  

In the above eleven hate word coinages, the first six are aimed at denigrating Mr Mohammadu Buhari, the late former president of Nigeria. In HC3, his first name ‘Mohammadu’, which is also known as ‘Muhammed’ in Islamic onomatopoeic tradition, has been blended with ‘mumu’ resulting in mmuhead. Closely related to muuhead is HC36, where the same ‘mumu’ blends with ‘Mohammadu’ to form Mumummadu. In HC23, it is the family name of the former president that is hatefully spitted with the blending of ‘doom’ with ‘Buhari’ to coin doomhari meaning that the former president represented a doom. In a related coinage, the same family name blends with ‘haram’ to become Buharam (HC42). ‘Haram’ is derived from ‘Bokoharam’, a terrorist Islamic sect in Nigeria. Another coinage that disparages former president Buhari is HC29, where the hate coiner blends ‘president’ with ‘idiot’ to arrive at presidiot. In a related coinage (HC32), the same former president is referred to as Cowmmander-in-Chief through the blending of ‘cow’ with ‘commander’. The killings of famers by herdsmen in the middle-belt of Nigeria could be the source of the latest coinage because many Nigerians believe that the former president, who is a Fulani man, aided and abetted the continue killings of innocent farmers, their wives and their children in that region.

Mr Muhammadu Buhari is not the only notable Nigerian that catches the attention of the online hate word coiners. The predecessor of Mr Buhari, former president Goodluck Jonathan, is also disparaged with the coining of Jonadaft from the blending of his family name ‘Jonathan’ and the word ‘daft’, meaning that he was daft as a president. In the same vein, Mr Bola Tinubu, the current president of Nigeria, is equally disparaged with the blending of his family name ‘Tinubu’ with the noun ‘thief’ to coin thiefnubu, thereby calling him a thief. Other notable Nigerians that are demeaned by the online hate word coiners include late Odumegu Ojukwu, Nnamdi Kanu and Ayodele Fayose. Ojukwu who was the leader of the Biafran side during the Nigerian civil war of 1967 – 1970 has his family name ‘Ojukwu’ blended with the word ‘crook’ to coin Ojucrook. Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the government-banned IPOB also has his family name ‘Kanu’ blended with ‘cow’ to arrive at cownu. In the case of Ayodele Fayose, a former governor of Ekiti State (Ekiti is one of the 36 federating states of Nigeria), has his family name ‘Fayose’ blended with ‘shit’ to coin the disparaging Fayoshit.

5.2 Compounding

Another morphological process used by the online news commenters to coin hate words is compounding. Out of the forty-five coinages extracted for this study, eight of them belong to this category. They are as shown below:

HC15  Othman DanPolio   Dan + Polio

HC16  Shecow     She + cow

HC20  southbeast    south + beast

HC21  southwaste    south + waste

HC33  Cowminder-in-Chief  Cow + minder

HC34  Herd of State    Herd + of + State

HC39  Hell-Rufai    Hell + Rufai

HC40  El-Ruffian    El + Ruffian  

In H15, the compound coinage is the Dan Polio, which is aimed at denigrating the Fulani tribe of Nigeria through the name of their late foremost spiritual leader, Othman Dan Fodio. It is the last part of that name that has been malignly manipulated to become ‘polio’. Polio is a disease that has not been completely eradicated in Nigeria, especially in the northern part of the country from where, incidentally, Dan Fodio originated. By hatefully manipulating the proper compound noun ‘Dan Fodio’ to become Dan Polio, a coinage has taken place.. The case of HC16 is also a compound word coinage which can be morphologically analyzed into ‘she’ and ‘cow’. The coinage is around the family name of the former leader of the dreaded Boko Haram terrorist organization, Abubakar Shekau. It is ‘Shekau’ that has been morphophonologically manipulated to arrive at Shecow. In HC20 and HC21, the southeastern people of Nigeria and their counterpart from the southwest are denigrated with the hateful compound coinages of southbeast and southwaste respectively. There is morphophonological analogy between ‘southeast’ and southbeast as well as between ‘southwest’ and southwaste.

HC33 and HC34 are hatefully coined compounds aimed at abusing the position of gormer president Buhari. The two coinages Cowminder–in–Chief and Herd of State are morphophonologically leveraged on the well-known compounds ‘Commander-in-Chief’ and ‘Head of State’ respectively. In the first coinage, the former president is referred to as a minder of cow, and in the second, he is called a herd of state. Both ‘cow’ and ‘herd’ are words associated with the Fulanis who are predominantly herdsmen. The last two hate coinages in this category are HC39 and HC40. In HC39, the former governor of Kaduna, one of the thirty-six federating states of Nigeria, in person of Mallam El-Rufai, has his name manipulated to arrive at a hate compound word coinage Hell-Rufai. In this coinage, the word ‘El’ which in Hebrew language means ‘God’ has been hatefully changed to ‘Hell’, which is believed by both Muslims and Christians to be the place where evil people will go to be tormented after the judgment day. The same thing goes for HC40, where a similar coinage, El- Ruffian, is sourced from the name of this same former governor. While the ‘El’ in the compound is retained, the ‘Rufai’ part is processed to become Ruffian, meaning that this notable Nigerian is a ruffian.

6.0 Conclusion

Digital communication through social media discussion platforms has opened up several phenomena that have necessitated various research engagements both in new media and linguistic studies. With the advent of online communication, language use has witnessed a lot of revolutions resulting in bold assault on many principles of rule-based linguistic theories. Coinages are now a common occurrence both at lexical and syntactic levels of language structures. Principally, this paper has shown that word coinages may have become a veritable linguistic means of expressing hate speech on the internet. Online news commenters are able to engage in hate speech coinages because they can easily hide under anonymity bearing in mind the legal implications of hate speech production in many countries nowadays. In Nigeria, for instance, anyone who engages in hate speech can be sued in the law courts for libel which attracts huge payment of damages upon conviction. It is however difficult to trace online hate speech producers, especially where it is in connection with online news comments where the real identities of commenters are not required.

Another issue that our findings have brought to the fore is the code-switching phenomenon at morphological level. Code-switching has been a bilingual matter which is realized at the syntactic level of language use. However, this paper has shown that it can be realized at the word level through the morphological processes of blending and compounding. This research has also shown that morphological code-switching occurs predominantly through blending in English language especially when hate word coinage is concerned.

Finally, and very importantly, the findings of this research have also suggested that the root of division among Nigerians might be sociopolitical and not necessarily religious. This has been proven to some extent looking at the dimensions of the hate word coinages collected and analyzed and discussed in this paper. They are directed at individuals, political groups, ethnic groups and the nation as a whole. We did not see any coinage directed at any religious group in Nigeria. There has been the tendency of looking at the lack of national cohesion among Nigerians as a result of the two dominant religions practiced in the country: Christianity and Islam. Further studies in the phenomenon of hate speech are suggested, so as to determine the fundamental sources of divisions in Nigeria.

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