Are We All Equal?

In the present paper the constitutional provisions granting a special procedure to the members of the cabinet and parliament will be examined. Their problematic aspects will be revealed and possible solutions will be proposed. In this context, the application of those provisions in practice will be underlined with the examination of specific cases as well as case law from the European Court of Human Rights. For the extent that the privileges could be justified, the principles of reasonable inequalities developed by John Rawls will be used.

Revolutionary Politics and Theater of Semiotics

In recent times, statistics have shown that the northern parts of Nigeria are poorer today than they were in the 1970s. Federal government of Nigeria is seen to be lacking in providing adequate security, quality education, good health facilities, agriculture, unemployment, infrastructure, social amenities and the like. Frustrated youths find themselves engaged in deadly politics, ethno-religious conflicts, political thuggery which has grown into political unrest and insurgency to be precise. The situation seems to be beyond repairs as seen in the present trend of the political campaigns, ethno-religious conflicts which is characterized by bombings, kidnapping, genocidal attacks, loss of lives and poverty, assassinations, hired killers, political blackmail, pre- and post-election violence. The thrust of this paper is to outline the recurring challenges and possible solutions of these revolutionary violent politics using varying semiotics with a view to finding a lasting solution for Nigeria's fragile democracy to progress to higher heights.

On The Threshold of Democratic Fragility

The recent events in the Nigerian political space are clear indications of a match towards the ‘unwanted'. These political events, such as the 2011 presidential elections resulted into the most violent post-elections killings in the history of Nigeria. In the light of this, media representation of that election may not be a value-free exercise but one imbued with value judgments or opinions which conveyed certain ideological leanings. It is against this background that the author examines the macrospeech acts which characterize the discourse of the 2011 post-presidential election news reports with a view to identifying and interpreting the prominent acts and their ideological imports. The study is situated within the broad frame of pragmatics and operationalises Searle Speech Act model in order to uncover the macrospeech acts in the news reports and how the acts covertly convey instances of prejudice and control.

Ethnic Stereotyping on Kenyan Blog Sites in the 2013 Political Elections

This paper presents results of an investigation into ethnic stereotyping on blog sites in g Kenya's 2013 political elections. The study, which was hinged on the taxonomy of stereotypes model, sourced data from two ethnically based blog sites, thus Kenyalist.com and Nipate.com. From over 80 posts on the blog sites, purposive sampling was used to identify eight posts which were deemed appropriate in view of the objectives of the study and the theoretical grounding. Results showed that ethnic stereotyping revolved around thematic areas such as marriage and ethnicity, culture and ethnicity, communal aggrandizement and ethnic divide and arbitration. It also emerged that language was a potent tool for stereotyping. The paper has however shown that the ethnic stereotypes that issued on blog sites during Kenya's 2013 electioneering were unfortunate, because though largely spurious, they had the potential of influencing people as they went to the ballot box.

Real-Name Registration Regulation in China

On February 4, 2015, China announced its new regulations that require all Chinese Internet users to register with their real names. The heightened control of Internet clearly demonstrates Chinese government's concerns over increasing social unrests and the abilities of Chinese Internet users to access information not censored by the government. However, the real-name registration regime has posed the greatest challenge to the anonymity of the Internet that many Chinese users have valued in an authoritarian society. Furthermore, the real-name registration system also impinges on Chinese Internet users' privacy, political freedom, and freedom of speech. This book chapter analyzes microblog discussions to examine existing Chinese censorship and control systems on the Internet, to investigate government's rhetoric to justify its censorship and control systems, and to identify major themes in Chinese netizens' reactions and discourses.

Metaphors for Nation and War in Chinua Achebe's Memoir

Chinua Achebe's memoir, There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra, caused quite a stir in the Nigerian polity when it was published in 2012. This chapter, therefore, examined the metaphors used by the author to construe the concepts of nation and the (Nigerian civil) war in the memoir. Theoretical insights were drawn from Conceptual Metaphor Theory, Primary metaphor theory and Conceptual blending theory to analyze the metaphors identified. Two central metaphors were used by the author to construe the concept of nation, namely, the DYSFUNCTIONAL FAMILY and the SCAPEGOAT metaphors. Metaphors for war included WAR AS NIGHTMARE, AS A TRIANGLE GAME, and AS A SERIES OF VIOLENT CRIMES respectively. The metaphor system highlighted in this chapter indicates that bad governance, corruption and ethnic politics were critical to the failure of Nigeria's first democratic experience (1960-1966) and the resultant civil war of 1967-1970.

ISIS Rhetoric for the Creation of the Ummah

I intend to examine the linguistic strategy used by ISIS as a means through which it creates the concept of the Muslim Ummah, which seeks to emphasize the unity of an international Muslim community based off the power of Islam. I apply a Critical Discourse Analysis for the study of Baghdadi's sermon on 4 July 2014 where he declared the establishment of the Caliphate and himself as the Caliph. Baghdadi's discourse creates a new communal identity from a Muslim populace who may have felt marginalized due to their religion in their countries of residence. It is through this discourse that he structures the Ummah loyal to the Caliphate in two ways: a) by summoning Islam to create a singular global Muslim body and the establishment of a Caliphate; and b) the structuring of an indiscriminate opponent, one that conflicts with the “camp of Islam”. The method of convincing and generating consent – of institutionalizing jihad - goes beyond propaganda; it necessitates the formation of an entirely novel lexicon, a narrative that fosters support while concurrently quashing any singular qualms.

A Critical Political Discourse Analysis of President Goodluck Jonathan's Declaration of State of Emergency on Adamawa, Borno, and Yobe States of Nigeria

This chapter analyzes the text to other connected discourses (intertextuality) and to historical and synchronic contexts with a view to demonstrate how the President can wield power in a democratic dispensation. The paper demonstrates that Declaration of Emergency Rule is indeed a political discourse. The paper also reveals that political powers are symmetric and asymmetric whereby the president may sound authoritative in one instance; he may sound appealing on the other. The paper also concludes that declaration of state of emergency is an embodiment of ideology, power and hierarchy. Lastly, the paper reveals that political discourses are couched bearing in mind the speaker, the listeners, and the context that gave birth to it including some sociological variables.

The Verbal Fuel for Ethnic Hatred and Political Violence in Kenya

Africa has been plagued by many violent conflicts in history and in contemporary times. Causes of these conflicts range from disagreements over allocation of national resources to ethnic rivalries over grazing fields, to territorial expansionism in the past, to economic development, elections and others, more recently. Hate speech or inflammatory language, or dangerous language both on line and off line, and elections have developed as major catalysts in recent violent conflicts. This chapter explores language (hate speech, inflammatory or dangerous language) as the verbal fuel that has ignited violent political conflicts in Kenya over the last two decades. It concludes that even though language fuels conflict, efforts to end conflict must go beyond language and elections (surface manifestations of deep-seated grievances) to economic marginalization which is at the core of differences that spasmodically erupt in violence.

Shades of the GNU in Zimbabwe (2009 – 13)

The chapter seeks to make a comparative analysis of the representations of Zimbabwe's GNU in Zimbabwean newspapers – The Herald and NewsDay with regards to two main issues of contention – the Zimbabwe Sanctions Debate and the constitution making process. It is important to note that Zimbabwe at the time of the GNU was under European Union (EU) and United States of America imposed ‘sanctions' and the sanctions debate constituted one of the most contentious issues with regards to the relations between the parties to the GNU. As such, it examines the discourse linguistic question of ‘objectivity' (or ‘neutrality') in ‘hard' news reports on the matter in these newspapers and from an Appraisal linguistic theoretic perspective. It compares the textuality of purposively sampled ‘hard' news reports in The Herald and NewsDay that evince the political relations between the parties to the GNU and the functionalities of the GNU in general during the period between September 2009 and June 2013.