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A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF THE DEBATE 

AMONG THE GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATES IN 

ANAMBRA STATE 2017 ELECTION 

 

Prof. Jane Ifechelobi 

Department of English Language & Literature 

Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka 

Email: jn.ifechelobi@unizik.edu.ng 

& 

Ifunanya Laurencia Ebekue 

Management Information and Computer Technology Unit 

Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka 

Email:li.ebekue@unizik.edu.ng 

 

Abstract  

This study examines a Critical Discourse Analysis of the debate 

among the gubernatorial candidates in Anambra state 2017 

election. The role of language in creating and sustaining power 

relations as well as ideological structures in Anambra State, 

Nigeria is also being examined. These power relations are 

formed, enacted and legitimated by the application of certain 

linguistic devices. The researcher attempts to disentangle hidden 

meanings and connotations of power in gubernatorial debate 

speeches in Anambra state. Five aspirants are involved in the 

debate. The study adopts Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and 

Halliday’s Systemic Functional Theory. The choice of the above 

is as a result of the researcher’s observation that CDA does not 

have a unitary theoretical framework. The researcher hopes that 

the contribution made to scholarship in CDA will help to create 

awareness on the power of words and utterances in political 

debate discourse. The study, thus, concludes that in real sense, 

the texts produced, disseminated and expended in the 2017 

gubernatorial electioneering debate in Anambra state of Nigeria 



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did not only promote unequal power relations, rather they also 

produced, reproduced, legitimized and maintained social 

structures that sustain domination. 

Keywords: Discourse, Critical Discourse Analysis, Political 

discourse, Speech (debate) 

Introduction  

Discourse analysis urges us to move from seeing language as 

abstract to seeing our words as having meaning in a particular 

historical, social and political condition. Our words are 

politicized, even if we are not aware of it, because they carry the 

power that reflects the interest of those who speak. Discourses 

can also be used for an assertion of power and knowledge, and 

they can be used for resistance and critique (Chilton, 2002). One 

such occasion where discourse can be used to assert, sustain and 

legitimize power is debates/campaign speeches. 

There are different topics and fields which invite CDA to 

perform its priceless job, however, if there is one social field that 

is most fitting here, it is that of politics. Essential to the idea of 

politics are such issues as power, legitimization, persuasion, 

struggle for dominance, and coercion. In the different kinds of 

discourse that one can think of as political, such as political 

debates/speeches, demonstrations, parliaments, broadcast 

interviews, campaigns, advertisements, manifestos, and so forth, 

some of these issues clearly manifest and all these are the fields 

of ideological battles. This is not surprising because, as van Dijk 

contends, “it is eminently here that different and opposed 

groups, power, struggle and interests are at stake. In order to be 

able to compete, political groups need to be ideologically 

conscious and organized” (11).  



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One of the important factors that establish the political figures’ 

success in reaching their aspiration and winning the public 

consensus in this continuous power struggle is their capability to 

persuade and impress their audience through texts reproduction, 

power sustenance and unequal power relations. According to 

Teittinen “the winner is a party whose language, words, terms 

and symbolic expressions are dominant once reality and the 

context have been defined” (1). This is where the need for 

critical listening and reading is felt more than any other time to 

realize what the reality is and how it is distorted through delicate 

and skillful use of language.  

Language is the key creator of the social world. Politics is one of 

the major events that pervade every human’s social world. This 

means that to some extent language and politics are intimately 

linked at a fundamental level.  In fact, as Chilton puts it, ‘the 

doing of politics is predominantly constituted in language’ (6). 

Other scholars have corroborated this close link between 

language and politics. The whole essence of politics as identified 

by Beard is the wish to gain power, exercise power and keep 

power, and language is the major vehicle for achieving these 

goals(2). Awonusi sees the relationship between language and 

politics as ‘bidirectional’ – language affects politics and politics 

affects language (10). Opeibi also sees the relationship as 

‘symbiotic’. The study of language and politics can be identified 

by scholars from two different disciplines- linguists and political 

scientists. While each of these disciplines focuses on different 

issues, they have some meeting points. Politics is concerned 

with power: the power to make decisions, to control resources, 

to control other people’s behaviour, and to control their values. 

As Ayoade, a foremost Nigerian political scientist rightly 

asserts: ‘language is the conveyor belt of power. It moves people 

to vote, debate, or revolt. It is therefore central explanation of 



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political stability or polarization’ (724). The meeting point in the 

research of language and politics and their intersection is Critical 

discourse analysis. The critical discourse approach engages the 

discourse approaches to any text that could be termed political. 

Among other things, texts and talks of professional politicians 

and political institutions have been studied from these 

perspectives. These include debates, campaigns, interviews, 

manifestos, rallies, and so forth. These kinds of studies are 

generally classified under political discourse analysis. 

From the foregoing discussion of political discourse, it then can 

be conveniently said that the debate among the gubernatorial 

candidates in Anambra state in 2017 election, which is the focus 

in this study, constitute political discourse. Therefore, the 

motivation for this study hinges on the need to create critical 

language awareness on the masses and to explore through the 

works of other researchers in the field of CDA to determine the 

extent to which the texts produced and consumed in the 2017 

Anambra election debate in Nigeria promote or hinder the 

promotion of asymmetrical power relations, social structures and 

identities. Significant in the study is the projection of individual 

and group ideologies through linguistic devices. 

In essence the work examines the aspect of power and 

ideological features that the gubernatorial debate reflect with a 

view to determining the interpersonal component of linguistic 

features that instantiate power and how the dominated or 

oppressed groups may discursively resist such abuse. 

Conceptual Review and Theoretical Framework  

Studies that apply CDA methods to Nigerian political discourse 

have increased recently. Some of these studies will be looked at 

under this heading. In a speech delivered by Obasanjo, the 

former president of Nigeria addressing PDP elders and 



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stakeholders forum, Taiwo identifies the strategies he used in 

legitimizing himself and the party he represents, as well as his 

coercion and intimidation of opponents, thereby expressing 

discourse power (Taiwo, 2008:191-205). Using another speech 

delivered by Obasanjo, Ayoola examines his address to the 

national assembly in 2005 which analysis was positioned against 

the socio-political context in which the speech was delivered – 

that of the speakers’ move to bid for a third term after spending 

the constitutionally required two terms in office. He notes that 

Obasanjo’s employment of personal deixis, emotive lexis and 

structure, the semantic field of war and military syntax helped 

him to project his message in the speech.(cited in Ademilokun 

and Taiwo 2013) 

In another article, Ayoola argues for the employment of CDA 

methods for the interpretation of the meanings and elicitation of 

the discursive strategies in socially- and politically-based text 

(2008:44). In line with this submission, most studies on CDA 

ask questions about how discourse structures are deployed in the 

production of social dominance.(Cited in Ademilokun and 

Taiwo, 2013:440) This is premised on the fact that words are not 

ideologically neutral; rather, they betray our social, cultural, 

political and historical inclinations.  

A few scholarly studies on campaign speeches also exist and this 

will be reviewed in the following paragraphs. In a synchronic 

stylistic analysis of campaign speeches during the 2007 general 

elections, Omozuwa and Ezejidiaku (2009) identify the stylistic 

devices used by the candidates. They observe that campaign 

speeches are embellished in rhetoric and propaganda. The 

following also characterized their diction such as: repetition, 

promise, colloquialism, metaphor, word coinages, pidginized 

expressions, figurative expressions, exaggeration, abusive and 

vulgar utterances. Other studies on Nigerian campaigns 

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/274485436_Discursive_strategies_in_newspaper_campaign_advertisements_for_Nigeria's_2011_elections
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/274485436_Discursive_strategies_in_newspaper_campaign_advertisements_for_Nigeria's_2011_elections


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corroborate these findings. Taiwo identifies political lampooning 

of the opposition through newspaper advertisements as one of 

the major campaign strategies of Nigerian politicians during the 

2007 general election in the country. Opeibi provides a structural 

and functional description of the emerging trends in negative 

advertising during political campaigns in Nigeria. He observes 

that Nigerian political campaign discourse is characterized by 

negative political advertising, particularly in newspapers. In his 

observation, many of the political office aspirants abandoned 

positive, issue-focused, image-building advertisements and 

engaged in rhetorical strategies of direct attacks on their 

opponents.  

Abdullahi-Idiagbon in a critical discourse analytic study of 

presidential campaign speeches during the 2007 presidential 

election in Nigeria, investigates the ideological undertones in the 

campaign speeches of selected presidential candidates. In his 

findings, he notes the manner in which the aspirants manipulated 

the linguistic resources to project the messages in their 

discourse. The styles reveal the use of connotative expressions, 

topicalization, passivization, persuasion and promises, 

euphemism and repetition to present their ideological leanings. 

It is also important to stress that doctoral dissertations have been 

written on different aspects of Nigerian political discourse. 

Notable among these are Oha (1994), which is a stylistic study 

of speeches of the two notable figures in the Nigerian Civil War, 

Yakubu Gowon, the then military head of state, and Emeka 

Odumegwu Ojukwu, the military leader who led the failed 

secession of the Biafra Republic. Opeibi (2004) did a study on 

discourse analysis of the 1994 presidential election campaigns in 

Nigeria. From stylistic and text-linguistic perspectives, 

Ayeomoni (2007) did a lexical analysis of speeches of selected 

Nigerian military leaders. The above mentioned studies on 



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Nigerian political discourse have identified pertinent linguistic 

features in different kinds of political speeches made by 

Nigerian political actors. These include their peculiar rhetorical, 

pragmatic, discursive and stylistic features. 

It is clear from all these studies that the Nigerian political class 

employs different innovative linguistic means during political 

campaigns to canvas for, assert, maintain and resist power in 

discourse. Of interest to the present study is political debate, 

which became about the most popular means of campaigning 

during the 2017/2018 general election. Prior to that period, most 

political campaigns were done face- to-face, print media and 

billboards. A major feature of the political debate is that they are 

products of careful thought, exploring a possible number of 

historical and social issues that will persuasively convey their 

message. In the present study, CDA is brought into action in the 

realm of political discourse as we examine how the verbal and 

visual aspects of the political debate demonstrates how 

politicians engage in power tussle through the mass media 

during the 2017/2018 elections in Nigeria. This endeavour, for 

us, is significant in considering the fact that media political 

debates not exceptional are a major tool with which Nigerian 

political parties and politicians exercise discursive and social 

powers. Thus, evident in the discourse is usually the image of 

‘Self’ and ‘Others’ consequent upon the goal of the discourse 

producers, which is to seize power at all costs. Therefore, this 

study attempts a critical interpretation of Anambra gubernatorial 

debate among political parties in 2017 elections beyond the 

codes used in them.  

There are many theoretical frameworks presented by CDA 

practitioners. The prominent and widely used ones as 

highlighted by Rahimi & Riasati (2011) are Fairclough (2003), 

van Dijk (1997), Hodge and Kress (1993) and van Leeuwen 



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(1996).  In the words of Rahimi & Riasati (2011), Fairclough is 

seen to have contributed to the field of CDA significantly. This 

is so because he was the first to create a theoretical framework 

that provided guidelines for future CDA research. The thrust of 

his framework is on the belief that language is a complex part of 

social life. The dialectic relation between language and social 

reality is realized through social events (texts), social practices 

(orders of discourse) and social structures (Fairlough, 2003).  

Fairclough’s method tries to make clear the ideological and 

power patterns in texts. He provided three-dimensional 

framework for text analysis which is widely used today in the 

field of CDA.  The three dimensions are: the linguistic 

description of the formal properties of the text, the interpretation 

of the relationship between the discursive processes/interaction 

and the text, where text is the end product of a process of text 

production and as a resource in the process of text interpretation 

and lastly the explanation of the relationship between discourse, 

social and cultural reality.   

Fairclough’s method of analysis covers not only ‘what’ 

(discourse features) but also the’ how’ and ‘why’ which are 

based on interpretation and explanation of texts. The need to go 

beyond ‘what’ in discourse is based on the assumption that there 

are certain underlying assumptions behind certain selections. 

These assumptions are never value-free and innocent; rather they 

are ideologically driven and motivated. He believes in a “hidden 

agenda” (Rahimi & Riasati 2011).The framework by Hodge and 

Kress has the dichotomous categorization of “euphemism” and 

“derogatory” thrust. The main focus of a particular vocabulary 

item will be on its origin of classification, schemes, and 

ideologically significant relations such as synonyms, antonyms, 

and hyponyms, relational values and expressive values. The 

application of different euphemistic or derogatory terms leads to 



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different presentations of realities and therefore ideologies 

(Rahimi & Riasati (2011).   

Van Dijk’s framework provided some illustrations of the 

categories that he believes to be important in doing CDA 

studies. He asserts that the main point of the analysis is to show 

how various ideologies are expressed in various kinds of 

structures. These structures cannot be presented here because 

there are hundreds of them.  

Van Leeuwen’s Framework is based on the belief that social 

actors are influenced by the policies and decisions of powerful 

organizations which either include or exclude them from the 

centers of power. He explains the principal ways in which social 

actors can be represented in discourse. This frame work 

according to Rahimi and Riasati consists of the following:   

1.  Exclusion (suppression vs. back grounding)   

2.  Inclusion (Activation vs.  Passivation, generalization vs. 

specification, individualization, assimilation, 

indetermination (anonymous), determination, nomination 

and categorization, Functionalization and identification, 

impersonalized social actors, abstraction objectivation. 

 

For the purpose of this study, the research integrates elements of 

Fairclough’s and van Dijk’s socio- cultural and socio- cognitive 

approaches to discourse as well as principles from Halliday’s 

SFT.  Fairclough’s model is adopted because it provides a 

description and interpretation of discourses in social context and 

offers an explanation of ‘why and how’ discourses work. The 

model attempts to examine both the linguistic features that are 

explicit- those that can be identified and described in a 

discourse. The model also offers explanation of the underlying 

or hidden meanings and ideologies. The choice of the above is as 



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a result of the researcher’s observation that CDA does not have a 

unitary theoretical framework. The researcher hopes that the 

contribution made to scholarship in CDA will help to create 

awareness on the power of words and utterances in political 

campaign discourse. 

 

Method of Data Analysis  

The issue relating to social and political lives of language users 

cannot be undertaken effectively by employing one theoretical 

framework or method of analysis. This is the belief of CDA 

scholars. They adopt a combination of different levels of 

analysis and analytical tools for political texts which is referred 

to as ‘multi method approach’. Texts are not simply products of 

a sender but a representation of a complex set of rules and 

influences which can be visible or not, thus communicated in 

message form to the intended receiver. For the sender and 

receiver to explore the text/message therein, they need to be 

critical. The analyst is critical in observing the invisible relations 

between people expressed in the language while the reader is 

critical not only to his subject of investigation but to his own 

context.  

In analysing this study, the works of Fairclough, Van Dijk and 

Halliday’s are basis of its analytical framework. Fairclough’s 

analysis is based on three components - description, 

interpretation and explanation. He distinguishes between these 

three different stages of Critical Discourse Analysis. The first 

stage is description, which is concerned with the formal features 

of the texts, such as vocabulary and grammar. The second stage 

is interpretation, where intertexuality and members’ resources 

play a major part. This stage is concerned with the relationship 

between text and interaction. The third stage, which is 



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explanation, concerns the relation between the interpretation and 

social context.   

Fairclough attempts to establish a systematic method for 

exploring the relationship between text and its social context. He 

did so by stating that all stages are essential to make a thorough 

Critical Discourse Analysis, that is, the linguistic properties of 

texts are described (text analysis), the relationship between the 

productive and interpretative processes of discursive practice 

and the texts is interpreted and the relationship between 

discursive practice and social practice is explained. In the 

process of interpretation also Members’ Resources (MR) is 

drawn upon.  MR refers to the background knowledge which is 

drawn upon to interpret texts. This background knowledge is 

cognitive because it resides in people’s head. MR, which is 

brought into the process of production and interpretation, is 

implicit. Such implicitness is usually contained in taken-for-

granted background knowledge. To understand how ideologies 

are produced, it is not enough to analyse texts; the discourse 

practice (how the texts are interpreted and received and what 

social effects they have) must also be considered.  The analysis 

focuses on micro and macro level of analysis which are two 

levels that are obtained in the unpacking of ideologically biased 

discourse. The micro level is concerned with the analysis of 

lexical choices in the speeches while the macro level 

concentrates on the communicative situation and the function(s) 

the speeches are meant to perform. A critical insight into the 

lexical choices, mood and modality deployed in the speeches as 

well as their communicative functions unfolds the power 

relations hidden in the speeches. Also the mental model 

representation unravels the role of ideologies within the society 

which may allow for polarization, influence and manipulation. 

For a critical discourse analysis to be successful it revels the 



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ideological assumptions and power imbalances that shape a 

text’s creation.  The features of language which are ideological 

capitalized include all aspects of meaning: lexical meaning, 

presuppositions, implicatures, coherence, entailment etc. and 

formal features of texts.   

Systemic Functional Theory approach will be used in analyzing 

the internal structure of the utterances. Halliday's Model has 

been considered very adequate because it contains relevant 

analytical categories like mood and modality as well as their 

various communicative functions which uncover the power 

relations in the debate speeches produced during the 2017 

gubernatorial elections in Anambra State. In this work, both the 

meanings produced through the formal linguistic elements and 

those produced using the background knowledge or information 

what Fairclough calls Members’ Resources are considered 

complementary for the total description and interpretation of the 

data. This framework proceeds from identification of lexical 

choices, the communicative situation and the functions of the 

speeches including the mental model representation to specific 

social situations to which they correspond and highlight their 

functions simultaneously all within the CDA framework. 

Findings 

The findings produced from the debate captured discourse 

structures that have implications of power and unequal power 

relations in terms of power as strategies of domination and mind 

control/ manipulation and also ideology based on the context of 

use.     

Ideology of Isolation/Personality Profiling: The ideology of 

isolation / personality profiling is evident in the debate speeches 

studied in this work. This quality is peculiar in this era of 

exposure and awareness, masses believing that personality is the 



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key and not political affiliation.  Three extracts were gotten from 

the debate from three aspirants.“I have a broad platform. I live in 

the state, I have been in government” the above statements 

portray the candidate as the right person to be elected because of 

his involvement in the state’s affairs. (Oseolaka Obaze, PDP 

aspirant). The governorship aspirant of All Progressive Grand 

Alliance in the person of Willie Obiano is so full of himself. He 

believed in his efforts and achievements in the state as stated 

here “my government is upto date in payment of salary, pension 

and gratuity”. As the incumbent governor of the state, he 

believes that he has done so well more than his predecessors that 

is why he fronts his personality to the audience. The use of 

language as an instrument of social interaction is clearly 

conveyed. The candidate is using language to interact with the 

people by demonstrating the attitude of gratitude and 

appreciation. Godwin Ezemo, PPA aspirant is not left out in 

seeking for the support of the electorate through employing 

Ideology of Isolation/Personality Profiling in his speech “I have 

brought investments back to Anambra because I want the best. 

We are lacking in all fields. I have decided to forgo my comfort 

zone to sacrifice for the state. I will focus on security, health. 

Agriculture, education, empowerment and environment”.  

The personality projection arises as a result of exposure and 

awareness rather than on political parties. This is an era when 

political party one belongs does not count rather the persons 

personality and achievement.  This premise gives rise to 

personality racketing in the debate. 

Ideology as a weapon of negotiation: The utilization of 

ideology as a weapon of negotiation between the candidates who 

are seeking political offices and the electorate were projected in 

two extracts from the governorship aspirants. 



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If we can have steady power supply and good roads, our 

industries will grow, we are going to manufacture more. 

Most of the power lines in Anambra are 33KVAinstead of 

330KVA, I will do more on power if am elected governor, 

I will also work on many roads… (Tony Nwoye, APC 

aspirant) 

The speaker on the extract above highlighted the epileptic 

situation of power supply and state of roads in our state. This 

was done to get the attention of the masses to their needs in their 

daily dealings. He promised to do more on power thererby 

enhancing the business activities of the state. The speaker B 

reasoned with the masses to vote for him for that will help him 

take the education of our children to the next level as seen in this 

extract “... Nigeria is a subject of continuous negotiation. Only 

13 per cent of our students in JSS are computer literate. The 

education our children are getting is the education of yesterday, 

I will take them get the education of tomorrow. (Osita Chidoka, 

UPP aspirant)”. The power of negotiation was powerfully 

employed in the two extracts. 

Ideology of positive self-representation of “us” and negative 

other representation of “them”: Two extracts were showcased. 

In one of the extracts APGA aspirant projects his own image by 

attacking the opponents in a subtle manner. The expression: “I 

am the only guy here that can do that” is intimidating and clearly 

projects power. He ended up in castigating his opponents for the 

audience to see how weak they are in other not to vote for them.  

“Tony doesn’t have the executive capacity; he hasn’t even 

worked in his entire life”. The statement above is really 

castigating and taints the image of the opponent in question. For 

Willie, Tony should not be voted for since he has not been in an 

executive office in his live and that disqualifies him being the 

governor of Anambra state. 



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Speaker B (Obaze Oseloka, PDP aspirant) sees himself and party 

as serious-minded people while seeing his opponent as unserious 

as captured here; “I hate to think that we came here to ridicule 

people, this is serious business”. The above statement was made 

to disabuse the minds of the electorate in the statement made by 

the opponent. The speaker further buttresses his point by saying 

that “they” can fix whatever went wrong during the opponent’s 

reign, seeing the state to be broken during “their” tenure as the 

executive governor of Anambra state. A political aspirant tends 

to present himself/ herself and his or her group in positive terms 

and other groups in negative terms. He does this by selecting 

some socially shared mental model with a negative connotation 

in the text and the essence is to capture different ideological 

positions. They resorted to attacking their opponents’ character 

and ability. The essence of this fact- giving strategy is to make 

the audience reject their opponent and accept the speaker(s). The 

background information recalled by the speaker is a biased 

platform to project his own ideology.  

Power and Domination: This strategy is used by the political 

aspirants to show power, authority and supremacy, especially 

supremacy of a particular view or belief over that of others. The 

asymmetrical power relations between the speaker and the 

audience is best revealed in these lexical items, “run”, “built”, 

“protection, “stand”. By implication, it is the dominant, the all-

powerful governor aspirant who is in-charge and who wants the 

dominated, the less privileged to see things in the light of his 

view. As the dominant social group, these politicians have the 

privilege and the advantage to control what can and should be 

said and which perspective to foreground in discourse.    

Power as liberalism: This is a case of demonstration of power 

as liberalism which is vigorously pursued by the speakers in the 

debate. One extract was showcased.  “We do not need to import 



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things we need to generate what we need”. This is just a 

common sense ideological representation by the speaker to 

sensitize the people to accept his offer.  There are two structures 

in this extract – “we” and “others” - and the power relation 

shows the privileged “we” and the less privileged “others”. The 

question tries to liberalize the power and prompts the audience 

in order to get their attention in an attempt to chart a common 

front with the audience. Most of the clauses in the extract, which 

were declarative, made no specific claim to power relations.  

 

Power as Mind Control/ Manipulation: Under this heading 

three ideologies were explored; positive ideology of self, which 

run through the extracts with the declarative item “I”. This 

expression depicts the speaker as a saint, “I am not campaigning 

against Peter Obi”. He wants the masses to see him as a saint 

who is never interested in castigating his opponents. The 

ideology of personality profiling and negative other 

representative were also deployed to control the mind of the 

people.  The speakers did not just deploy the ideology of 

personality profiling, but used it as a tool to influence the people 

and to control their mind into believing in them. The ideology of 

negative other representative was also implied to manipulate the 

people to accept their candidacy. “I am here to offer myself 

selflessly”. “I have offered myself to assist the less privileged 

and indigent people”.  These expressions are used to influence 

the electorate, the less privileged into approving his candidature.  

The use of the expression “Anambra state is wallowing in 

trouble” is directly pointing at the man on sit and invariably 

other opponents in the battle of winning the electorates’ heart in 

electing their governor. The analysis so far shows political 

speeches that are so expertly constructed to dominate, deceive, 

manipulate and of course get the electorate to cast their votes in 

support of the speakers. Whether the promises are fulfilled 



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eventually is quite a different thing. The politicians usually make 

such haughty promises to gain the support of the people and this 

is the main purpose of the speeches.   Under this, two extracts 

were used. 

 

 

Discussion of Findings 
In this study, the researcher has viewed political debate speeches 

that encode power and dominance with ideological undertone. 

The work also reveals some hidden meanings and messages that 

are rooted in the linguistic expressions used. The linguistic and 

extra-linguistic variables of the communicative event including 

the socio-cultural, socio-political and socio-linguistic indices of 

the environment which influence the structure and the functions 

of the political messages were also considered. The researcher 

has demonstrated that discourse has structure, meaning and 

action. In Fairclough’s opinion, discourse reflects an action. 

Secondly, there is a dialectical relationship between discourse 

and social structures, in which social structures determine and 

create social process.  Efforts have also been made to give a 

comprehensive account of the structure, hidden meaning and 

communicative actions and effects of the pieces of discourse 

used as election debate texts produced during the period.  

The application of analytical tools from Fairclough’s members’ 

resources, van Dijk’s socio-cognitive approach and Halliday’s 

system of mood and modality as theoretical bases has enabled 

the researcher to describe the debate discourse as a strong tool 

for creating and enacting power and ideological functions.  The 

multi-method approach adopted in this inquiry has helped the 

researcher to account for the interface between structures of 

discourse and structures of power involved in the gubernatorial 

political debate speeches. The method shows the power of 



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language as strategies for domination, liberalism, mind control 

(which is a form of manipulation) and ideological projections as 

instrument for isolation/personality projection, negotiation, 

positive self and negative other representation.   

Moreover, ideology as noted in the study can be used as an 

instrument of personality projection, self- promotion or what van 

Dijk calls self- glorification strategy. The purpose is simply to 

win the support of the populace. So, they try to promote 

themselves beyond measure in order to achieve the much desired 

self-glorification. 

The study, therefore, concluded that Anambra state 

gubernatorial aspirants made use of their speeches in the debate 

as tools not only for gaining support but also for establishing, 

maintaining and sustaining power and unequal power relations 

in the 2017 elections.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



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