The 2015 Elections and Campaign of Calumny: The Media Play with Abusive Language in Electioneering

The periods set aside for the 2015 General Elections in Nigeria were the most dreaded periods in the history of Nigerian politics precisely before the elections were conducted. The phobia for these periods did not only lie in the several agitations, which were also grossly heightened by the flourishing insurgencies that ravaged some parts of the country which came as the emerging preludes to the elections. Such phobia was also exacerbated by the provocative outbursts from opposing parties’ contenders. Worse still, several self-acclaimed journalists peddle such do-or-die visages through the social media networks, thereby compounding the extant trepidations that the socio-political logjam indexical of the imminent calamities that the approaching elections could trigger. As the elections drew nearer, the volatile background expressed above was more often instigated by the use of very obnoxious language of expressions in campaigns and sloganeering outlets. As a necessity, this study examines such use of objectionable expressions in the pre-2015 Elections era and how such untrammeled use of language qualify as abuses from a pragmatic point of view. Interestingly, the media’s patronage of the objectionable language of the Nigerian politicians, has become symptomatic of the hovering phobia for the 2015 Elections which have since been concluded and celebrated. It is this media radiation of such abusive expression that has supplied the data for the study. Relying on the Pragmatic theory, the study establishes the selected data as instances of abusive language deployed by opposing political participants during the 2015 Elections.

Keywords: 2015 Elections, Media, Campaign, Abusive, Language, Electioneering.