Representing the Farmers-Herders Conflict: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Selected Nigerian Online Newspaper Editorials

Cite this article as: Alao, A. (2026). Representing the Farmers-Herders Conflict: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Selected Nigerian Online Newspaper Editorials. Sokoto Journal of Linguistics and Communication Studies (SOJOLICS),2(1), 240-249. https://doi.org/10.36349/sojolics.2026.v02i01.021

By

Abdulwasiu Alao

Department of English and American Studies,

University of Vienna, Austria.

abdwahsee@gmail.com

Abstract

This study examines how ideological meanings are embedded in selected editorial discourse on the farmers-herders conflict in Nigeria. The research corpus is based on eight selected editorial excerpts from four prominent and widely circulated Nigerian online newspapers. They include: The Punch, The Tribune, The Sun and Leadership. These editorials were published from January to December 2018, corresponding to the peak of the conflict. This study adopts a qualitative interpretive design, drawing on Fairclough’s (1995) Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) framework and Althusser’s (1971) Theory of Ideology. This study investigates how editorial discourse constructs representations of actors and events involved in the farmers-herders conflict in Nigeria. Similarly, it reveals discursive strategies employed in the media narrative of violence, accountability and responsibility. The findings establish that selected editorials rely on emotional expression, evaluative language, and collective labelling that frame conflict in binary terms. The study provides insights into how discursive strategies support ideological representations that probably shape public perceptions and sustain existing social tensions. Therefore, this study recommends neutral language ethics in media discourse, which are essential for informed public debate and constructive conflict resolution.

Keywords: CDA, media discourse, newspaper editorials, ideological representation, farmers-herders conflict.

1. Introduction

In the past, farmers and herders lived harmoniously (Nyong &Fiki, 2005). They thrived separately in their occupations without hindering each other’s existence. Even though there were clashes of interest, both parties tended to resolve them amicably. In the year 2018, their coexistence became intolerable. Farmers argue about encroaching on their farmland, while herders complain of losing grazing paths to ultra-modern national and personal development. What appeared to be a dispute over land use later transcended into violent confrontation. The conflict has grown into one of the most persistent security and socio-economic challenges in the country. Numerous scholarly publications advocate for agreeable resolutions. At the same time, to promote peaceful coexistence (Adisa et al., 2016; Okpeh& Okoli, 2022).

Language is not merely an instrument of communication; it is a social force that can unify or divide (Bloor & Bloor, 2007, p. 6). Hence, this study applies Fairclough’s CDA linguistic framework and Althusser’s Ideology to the selected editorials. This reveals ideological underpinnings that most likely have intensified the conflict. Furthermore, its main concern is to examine linguistic devices which editorials apply to demonise, scapegoat, or incite violence. Most importantly, the study seeks to raise awareness of the linguistic devices employed by these selected editorials, which further strengthen the conflict beyond control.

Meanwhile, current research on media discourse proves that news language can frame social conflicts in particular ways. For this reason, they tend to prioritise some aspects of violent events while downplaying others (Adisa et al., 2016). Ibileye (2022) observes that media coverage of the farmers-herders conflict has been overstated and sentimental. Similarly, Okpeh and Okoli (2022) assert that news reportage has been mainly subjective and focused on ethnic identity, while overlooking the complex socio-economic dynamics behind the crisis. Such framing may be inimical to peaceful coexistence and promote insecurity (Wonuola& Adisa, 2013, p. 11). 

This study contributes to research onthe linguistic aspect of the conflict by examining the relationship among language, power, and ideology in selected editorials published by the four national newspapers. Language as a social construct is shaped by historical, cultural, and political factors (van Dijk, 1998). Thus, the study investigates how those factors influence discursive representation. Three research questions guided the analysis: (1) How do Nigerian online newspaper editorials represent the actors involved in the conflict? (2) What linguistic and discursive strategies are used to frame violence, responsibility, and collective labelling? (3) What ideological connotations are embedded in the language used to describe the conflict?

This study differs from previous studies by focusing specifically on editorials. Besides, editorial positions are important because they express the institutional and ideological position of the newspaper. Therefore, this study analyses institutional voices rather than routine news reporting.

2. Literature Review

2.1 Critical Discourse Analysis and Media Language

CDA is grounded in the view of discourse as social practice (Fairclough 1991). Thus, it examines how language interacts with power, ideologies, and social inequalities. Correspondingly, it shows how discursive practices reproduce or challenge dominant social ideologies (van Dijk, 1998, p. 191). Fairclough (1992a, 1992b, 1995) asserts that discourse operates within broader social structures, arguing that it not only reflects social reality but also actively shapes social relations, identities, and knowledge systems. Fairclough’s three-dimensional framework; textual analysis, discursive practice, and social practice provide a systematic method for exposing ideological meanings embedded in texts. In addition, it traces the role of discourse in maintaining or contesting social inequalities (Fairclough &Wodak, 1997). There are other CDA approaches, notably van Dijk’s (1995, 1998) socio-cognitive model and Reisigl and Meyer’s (2016) discourse-historical approach. However, Fairclough’s framework is particularly well-suited to media text analysis because it integrates close linguistic analysis with institutional context and broader social critique. In that way, this enables an examination of how specific lexical choices function within the editorial genre.

Althusser’s (1971) theory of ideology provides a complementary lens. His definition of ideology is the system of representations through which individuals understand their relationship to the material conditions of existence. He clarifies this ideology into two: Repressive State Apparatuses (RSAs) and Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs). RSAs operate with brute force, whereas the ISAs use consent and symbolic representation. With this distinction, media falls into the category of ISAs, which can be seen as an avenue of ideological reproduction. This places the individuals as social subjects who reproduce existing social relations.

This distinction is important for the present study. Due to the fact that editorials do not force a particular reading of the conflict but naturalise one, presenting ideological interpretations as common sense. By applying alongside Fairclough’s framework, Althusser’s theory enables the study to move beyond describing what the editorials say, to explaining how and why they say it, and in the ways they do.

2.2 The Farmers-herders Conflict in Nigeria

Research on the causes of the farmers-herders conflict in Nigeria identifies competing livelihood systems as a primary cause. The Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution (IPCR) and Mamman (2021) affirm that herders’ need for livestock mobility conflicts directly with sedentary crop farming, creating inevitable points of contact over land-use issues. Nyong and Fiki (2005) observe that they identify crop destruction caused by grazing cattle as the most immediate and tangible grievance, while Adisa et al. (2016) affirm that the conflict’s intensification is within broader structural pressures: population growth, environmental degradation, and the expansion of cultivated land that has gradually narrowed traditional grazing paths. Together, these studies establish that the conflict is basically structural rather than ethnic in origin. This is a point that bears directly on how media representations of the conflict should be evaluated and disseminated.

2.3 Media Coverage and Framing of the Conflict

Studies on media coverage of the conflict reveal persistent patterns of ethnic framing. Badiru and Sunmonu (2018) analysed newspaper framing of farmers-herders’ conflicts and found that the narratives frequently foreground ethnic identity. They argue that this pattern may exacerbate social tensions by reducing a complex resource dispute to a binary of ethnic aggression. Similarly, Chima et al. (2019) observed that consistent attribution of attacks to ‘Fulani herdsmen’ reinforces negative group stereotypes. This may likely turn into proscribing an entire ethnic identity rather than specific actors. Although these studies are useful, they primarily focus on news reports. In addition, they did not extend their analysis to editorial discourse, the institutional voice of the newspaper, which directly shapes interpretive contexts for readers.

Okpeh and Okoli (2022) assert the most pointed critique, arguing that the recurrent ‘Fulanisation’ narrative circulating in Nigerian media not only misguides readers but actively obscures the socio-economic, environmental, and governance dimensions of the crisis. Ibileye (2022) corroborates this with his findings that media coverage has been systematically overstated and sentimental. Although these assessments are well-founded, they are largely qualitative observations about tone and tendency rather than linguistically grounded analyses.

Existing scholarship has established that Nigerian media coverage of the conflict is ethnically skewed, emotionally amplified, and structurally reduced. What remains to be examined is how these tendencies are linguistically produced in the editorial discourse of the four selected newspapers. The editorial genre directly encodes the institutional ideology of newspapers. Badiru and Sunmonu (2018) and Chima et al. (2019) address framing in the news reports. Okpeh& Okoli (2022) and Ibileye (2022) comment on general media tendencies and examine broader ideological narratives. These studies focused primarily on the framing pattern of news but did not provide a linguistic analysis of the editorial position.

The study addresses this gap by combining Fairclough’s CDA framework with Althusser’s theory of ideology to reveal the specific discursive devices by which these four Nigerian online newspaper editorials construct ideological representations of the conflict.

3. Methodology

This study adopts a qualitative interpretive design (Wodak& Meyer, 2009). The corpus consisted of eight editorial excerpts published from January to December 2018, drawn from four widelydisseminated Nigerian online newspapers: ThePunch, TheTribune, TheSun, and Leadership. The editorials were identified through keyword searches using terms related to farmers-herders conflict, such as ‘farmers’, ‘herders’, ‘clashes’, ‘grazing’, and ‘herdsmenattacks’, and only texts that explicitly addressed the farmers-herders conflict were included. Editorials were chosen because they represent the institutional voice of newspapers and provide a suitable site for examining ideological representation.

The selected editorials were subjected to repeated close reading to identify recurring, discursive patterns. The analysis focused on lexical choices, metaphor, evaluative language, and collective labelling, which were subsequently grouped into broader discursive strategies and interpreted through Fairclough’s three dimensions and Althusser’s concept of ideological interpellation. Therefore, the selected editorials were treated as illustrative cases for exploring ideological representation rather than as a representative sample of all Nigerian newspaper editorials.

4. Theoretical Framework

4.1 Fairclough’s Three-dimensional CDA Framework

Fairclough’s (1995) three-dimensional CDA framework conceptualises discourse through three interrelated dimensions: textual analysis, discursive practice, and social practice. In this study, the framework is applied to examine how lexical choices, metaphors, evaluative expressions, and collective labelling in the selected editorials construct ideological representations of the farmers-herders conflict and shape communal understanding.

4.2 Althusser’s Theory of Ideology and Ideological Interpellation

Althusser’s (1971) theory of ideology argues that institutions reproduce dominant beliefs by positioning individuals as specific types of social subjects through ideological interpellation. The concept is applied in this study to analyse how the selected editorials position readers to interpret the conflict through recurring categories, and thereby naturalise particular ideological representations while concealing broader structural causes.

5. Data Presentation and Analysis

The analysis identified four recurring discursive strategies across the corpus: violent metaphor, recurrence framing, collective labelling and victim construction, and economic/ideological framing. These are discussed in turn below.

5.1 Violent Metaphor

Both excerpts below, drawn from The Punch (2018) https://punchng.com/hypocrisy-in-tackling-fulani-herdsmen-terrorism/ and https://punchng.com/from-palaces-to-shanties-how-herdsmen-crisis-turned-kings-to-refugees/ share the same discursive strategy.The construction of violence through emotionally loaded metaphors that exclude structural interpretation.

Excerpt 1: The Punch (January 10, 2018):

"For the umpteenth time, Benue State has become a scene of mindless and horrific killings of innocent Nigerians… In what was obviously a premeditated attack, the victims of the Benue killing fields were, as usual, taken unawares and right in the dead of the night."

Excerpt 2: The Punch (February 18, 2018):

"The wave of killings across farming communities continues to raise serious concerns about the safety of rural populations."

The lexical choices in both excerpts can be said to have been drawn from registers of extremity and catastrophe. Words such as ‘mindless’, ‘horrific’, ‘innocent’, and ‘killing fields’ in the first excerpt, and ‘wave’ and ‘serious concerns’ in the second, create an emotional register which frames the conflict as morally devastating before any analytical claim is made. The metaphors do specific work: ‘Benue killing fields’ could be seen as a metaphor of brutality, because it changes a precise communal location into a place of destruction. On the other hand, ‘wave of killings’ could be connected with a hydrological metaphor that probably portrays the violence as natural and beyond human control. These metaphors share the same ideological stance as both portray the conflict as a force rather than a social phenomenon with identifiable causes. Moreover, the adverb ‘obviously’ in ‘obviously a premeditated attack’ is loaded, presenting a contested interpretive claim as self-evident and beyond dispute.

These word choices construct an ideological position in which the conflict is terrible, overwhelming and beyond the reach of structural explanation. This is a representation that potentially closes off the deeper structural explanations that are responsible for public discourse on the conflict.

 

5.2 Recurrence Framing

The two excerpts below were from The Tribune https://tribuneonlineng.com/herdsmens-killings-time-act/(2018), and both share themes of recurrence and governance failure. Unlike The Punch, which focuses on moral outrage, The Tribune directs its critical gaze at the state.

Excerpt 1: The Tribune (June 23, 2018):

"The continued killings in rural communities across the country have exposed the failure of authorities to protect citizens from the menace of armed herdsmen."

Excerpt 2: The Tribune (July 12, 2018):

"The inability of the government to curb the recurring clashes between farmers and herders continues to undermine public confidence."

The key lexical items from both excerpts are ‘continued’, ‘recurring’, ‘menace’, ‘failure’, and ‘inability’, which are selected from a semantic field of persistence and institutional failure. Therefore, these lexical choices establish from the beginning that the conflict is ongoing and inadequately handled by the government. The first excerpt contains no central metaphor in the figurative sense, but ‘menace’ functions as a lexical choice close to a near-metaphor. It is not a neutral descriptive noun but one that carries connotations of something barbaric, ungovernable, and requiring suppression. This is evident from its long use for racialising social threats. The ideological effect is to position the reader as a citizen whose primary grievance is governance failure rather than as a witness to human suffering, embedding the conflict within a political rather than a humanitarian interpretive frame.

5.3 Collective Labelling and Victim Construction

The two excerpts below from The Sun (2018) https://www.sunnewsonline.com/herdsmens-killings-a-national-tragedy/ both employ collective labelling and victim construction. Although they do so through different linguistic mechanisms, one through grammatical structure, the other through temporal contrast.

Excerpt 1: The Sun (November 18, 2018):

"Farmers who depend on their farmlands for survival now live in fear as armed herdsmen invade villages and destroy crops."

Excerpt 2: The Sun (March 16, 2018):

"Communities that once depended on farming for livelihood are now deserted as villagers flee repeated attacks."

These excerpts are grounded in the lexical choices of material realities of rural life, ‘farmlands’, ‘survival’, ‘livelihood’, ‘crops’, ‘villages’, creating farming communities as productive and economically legitimate before the aggressor introduces any violence. The first excerpt contains no extended figurative metaphor. But the verb ‘invade’ imports a military register into an agricultural context, figuratively framing what might be described as a land-use conflict as an act of territorial aggression. In the second, ‘deserted’ and ‘flee’ carry connotations of wartime displacement, constructing the rural landscape as a site of emergency evacuation rather than habitual life. Farmers are systematically constructed as acted upon rather than as actors, while herders are represented collectively as ‘armed herdsmen’. This shows the discursive distinction of ‘individual and the group’ and then assigns a single threatening identity to an entire group. In contrast, a farmer is seen as an individual, a victim and a vulnerable citizen.

The ideological effect of these combined choices is a dual representation in which one group is humanised through livelihood and loss while the other is reduced to collective aggression. This construction shuts out any reading of the conflict as a reciprocal dispute over shared resources.

5.4 Economic and Ideological Framing

The two excerpts from Leadership (2018) https://leadership.ng/herdsmen-killings-and-the-challenge-for-nigeria/ below share a logic that is absent from the other three newspapers. The excerpts frame the conflict not in terms of who is suffering or who is responsible, but in terms of what is at stake for the Nigerian nation-state.

Excerpt 1: Leadership (May 19, 2018):

"The persistent clashes between farmers and herders continue to threaten national unity and food security."

Excerpt 2: Leadership (November 1, 2018):

"Failure to address the farmer-herder crisis effectively could have far-reaching implications for national stability."

The dominant lexical feature of both excerpts is nominalisation: ‘national unity’, ‘food security’, ‘national stability’, and ‘far-reaching implications’. They are all abstract nouns or noun phrases that carry no reference to specific people, places, or events. This lexical register situates both editorials firmly within the discourse of governance and policy rather than of human experience. Neither of the two excerpts employs figurative metaphor in the conventional sense. In addition, the phrase ‘far-reaching implications’ functions metaphorically in a spatial sense, projecting the crisis outward and forward as if its consequences will spread across the national body. The register is administrative rather than urgent and humanitarian. The ideological effect is a representation in which the primary stake of the conflict is national health, not the suffering of specific communities or groups. This positions readers as national stakeholders whose concern should be about the nation’s stability and not as lived witnesses to the consequences of violence.

6. Discussion of Findings

The analysis demonstrates that the selected editorials consistently construct the farmers-herders conflict through ideological binaries using discursive strategies such as violent metaphor, recurrence framing, collective labelling, and economic framing. Although the four newspapers differ in emphasis, they collectively privilege emotional and ethnic representations while giving comparatively little attention to the structural causes of the conflict.

These findings support Badiru& Sunmonu’s (2018) and Chima et al.’s (2019) observations on the conflict, which argued that Nigerian media framing strengthens ethnic identities and negative perceptions among the masses. Similarly, it extends the findings of Okpeh and Okoli (2022) and Ibileye (2022) by providing further linguistic evidence on the conflict, which stipulates that media discourse, particularly news reports, relies on evaluative language and emotional framing to form public opinion of the conflict. Unlike previous studies that focus primarily on framing inclinations and news reportage, the present study demonstrates how these ideological positions are constructed through specific lexical and discursive choices in the selected editorials.

The findings also affirmed Fairclough’s (1995) claim that discourse actively constructs social reality and Althusser’s (1971) conception of the media as an ideological state apparatus. The selected editorials invite readers to interpret the conflict in simplified moral categories: victim and aggressor, individual and group, possibly promoting the current social tension while obscuring a broader socio-economic explanation that is paramount to conflict resolution.

7. Conclusion

This study demonstrates that the selected editorials from ThePunch, TheTribune, TheSun, and Leadership frequently rely on evaluative language, emotional expression, and collective labelling to construct the farmers-herders conflict in Nigeria through the medium of ideological binaries of victim and aggressor rather than neutral media representation. Such discursive strategies may shape public perception, strengthen social tensions, and underscore the need for more balanced and responsible editorial practices when reporting sensitive national issues in a heterogeneous society such as Nigeria. While the findings provide valuable insight into recurring discursive patterns within the selected newspapers, they are limited by the study’s small qualitative corpus, and it should not be used to generalise all Nigerian newspaper editorials. Future research could strengthen these findings through corpus-assisted critical discourse analysis and cross-media comparisons that examine broader lexical patterns and the influence of different institutional contexts on conflict representation.

References

Adisa, R. M., Mohammed, R., & Ahmad, M. K. (2016). Issues and consequences of newspaper framing on ethnic conflict: A qualitative study of ethnic group leaders’ conflict frames. Malaysian Journal of Communication, 32(2), 294–316. https://doi.org/10.17576/JKMJC-2016-3202-16

Althusser, L. (1971). Ideology and ideological state apparatuses (Note towards an investigation). In Lenin and philosophy and other essays (pp. 127–186). Monthly Review Press.

Badiru, I. O., & Sunmonu, I. V. (2018). Reportage and framing of pastoralist–farmer conflicts in Nigerian newspapers. Journal of Agricultural Extension, 22(3), 51–61.

Bloor, M., & Bloor, T. (2007). The practice of critical discourse analysis: An introduction. Hodder Arnold.

Chima, O. A., Obayi, P. M., &Nwagu, F. O. (2019). NewspapercoverageofFulaniherdsmenattacksonhostcommunities: AstudyofthreenationaldailiesfromJanuary-April, 2018. Egede International Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies (EJIMA), 1(1), 183–197. https://eprints.gouni.edu.ng/2189/1/Fulani%20Heardsman.

Fairclough, N. (1991). Language and power. Longman.

Fairclough, N. (1992a). Critical language awareness. Longman.

Fairclough, N. (1992b). Discourse and social change. Polity.

Fairclough, N. (1995). Critical discourse analysis: The critical study of language. Longman.

Fairclough, N., &Wodak, R. (1997). Critical discourse analysis: An overview. In T. A. van Dijk (Ed.), Discourse as social interaction: Discourse studies: A multidisciplinary introduction (Vol. 2, pp. 58–84). SAGE.

Ibileye, G. (Ed.). (2022). Studies in media and ideological representation of herders/farmers conflict in Nigeria (1st ed.). Malthouse Press Limited.

Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution, & Mamman, E. (2021). Resolving the farmers-herders conflict in Nigeria: A way forward for sustainable national development. International Journal of Social Science and Human Research, 4(7). https://doi.org/10.47191/ijsshr/v4-i7-19

Nyong, A., &Fiki, C. (2005). Drought-related conflicts, management and resolution in the West African Sahel [Paper presentation]. Human Security and Climate Change International Workshop, Oslo, Norway.

Okpeh, O. O., & Okoli, A. C. (2022). The media, farmers-herders conflict and the "Fulanization" narrative in Nigeria. Glocalism: Journal of Culture, Politics and Innovation, 2022(2). https://doi.org/10.12893/gjcpi.2022.2.9

Reisigl, M., &Wodak, R. (2016). The discourse-historical approach (DHA). In R. Wodak& M. Meyer (Eds.), Methods of critical discourse studies (3rd ed., pp. 23–61). Sage.

van Dijk, T. A. (1995). Power and the news media. Political Communication and Action, 6(1), 9–36.

van Dijk, T. A. (1998). Ideology: A multidisciplinary approach. SAGE.

Wodak, R., & Meyer, M. (2009). Methods of critical discourse analysis. SAGE.

Wonuola, M. M., & Adisa, R. (2013). Perception of stakeholders to newspaper framing of farmers-herder conflict in Nigeria. International Journal of Intellectual Discourse, 6(3), 10-23.