Verbal Vernom In National Discourse Nigerian Ethnic And Religious Perspective.pdf
Domain:
peace and security
The National polity has become increasingly tensed with security challenges, political distrust and mistrust as well as wave of agitations for secession from different ethnic groups that make up the Nigerian State. This has set the stage for discussion on different forums and platforms: Radio, Television and Social media. This paper investigated to know how this has led to the use of inflammatory statements and how it is threatening the peace and unity of the country. This paper used language as a mirror to determine how different ethnic groups view each other and the social relations that exist among them. The paper draws heavily from comments and statements made during discussions on both radio and television programs as well as comments from social media platforms such as Facebook, twitter, WhatsApp among others. The finding of this study revealed that most comments are dominated by insults on ethnic groups, persons and religion. Political, religious, security matters and secession have created anger and bitterness, making it very easy for people to insult, verbally assault and threaten each other. The study also found out that inflammatory statements are minimal on radio and television due to regulatory standard and professional ethics, but very alarming on the social media platforms, as comments on the social media are characterized by ethnic prejudices, religious intolerance, security threat and violence, intolerance to opposite views and opinions. The inflammatory speeches have greatly eroded national cohesion among ethnic groups in Nigeria and if not curtailed, has the capacity to cause crises on an unimaginable scale in the country. The paper also found out that injustice, marginalization, ethnic distrust has greatly triggered anger and hopes to draw attention of relevant authorities the power of misuse of language and its ability to promote ethnic crisis.
Keyword: Inflammatory tone, chaotic language, communication, conflict, challenges, religion, violence, National discourse, insecurity.