By
Adejuwon
Titilayo Rebecca
Federal
University, Lokoja
adejuwontitilayo4@gmail.com
and
Peter
Ochefu Okpeh, PhD
Federal
University, Lokoja
peter.okpeh@fulokoja.edu.ng
&
Ape
Sunday Okakwu
Federal
University, Lokoja
Abstract
During Nigeria’s 2024 #EndBadGovernance Campaigns, public
discourse fractured into deeply competing narratives. On one side, citizens
used protests to frame severe economic hardship as structural government
failure. On the other, the state cast these identical pressures as unavoidable
reforms necessary for national recovery. This study investigates the linguistic
mechanics behind this divide. Adopting a qualitative comparative design, the
study applies Fillmore’s (1982) Semantic Frame Theory to twenty purposively
selected data from protest placards, activist tracks, media interviews, and
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s address to the nation. The data show a stark
divergence. Anti-government actors consistently activated frames of economic
suffering, accountability, and collective resistance. Meanwhile, state actors
anchored their rhetoric in themes of economic rebirth, national unity, and
shared sacrifice. These findings illuminate how deliberate lexical choices
alter public perception of a single socio-political crisis. By uncovering these
hidden linguistic structures, the study confirms the utility of semantic
framing analysis in explaining how political actors weaponized language to
shape reality, extending the literature on Nigerian protest linguistics.
Keywords: #EndBadGovernance Campaigns; Nigeria political discourse; protest discourse; Semantic Frame Theory; semantic framing
DOI: www.doi.org/10.57233/tjllc.2026.v05i03.003
author/Adejuwon T. Rebecca, Peter O. Okpeh & Ape S. Okakwu
journal/Tasambo JLLC 5(3) | February 2026 |
