Mapping Patterns of Ideologies in Nigeria’s Socio-political Discourse: Evidence from Herdsmen Discourse

Abstract

Discourses in Nigeria are fixated on core cultural ideologies through a multidimensional interface. The present study tests this interface by mapping out ideologies in crisis-driven political discourse centred on the herdsmen crisis. The paper argues that certain ideologies are characteristic of Nigerian political discourse and form the meaningful units of a wide range of its discourses. Drawing on 757 news headlines reporting the herdsmen crisis, the study further attests that crisis discourse in Nigeria is often patterned around certain prevalent ideologies, that is, religious divide, ethnicity, nationhood, power abuse, and citizen distrust, which can further be mapped onto the socio-political landscape of the country. The paper argues that since crisis-driven discourse in Nigeria is a construct of its building block ideologies, such discourse is best deconstructed from such underlying ideological architecture.