DISCOURSES OF INSTABILITY: U.S. POSTCOLONIAL POLITICAL IDEOLOGY AND NIGERIAN TERRORISM NARRATIVES

Abstract

  This study examines how instability and terrorism in Nigeria are discursively constructed in the presidential rhetoric of the United States under former President Donald Trump, and negotiated in the presidential discourse of Nigeria under Bola Ahmed Tinubu. Employing a qualitative research design, grounded in Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), the study analyses selected speeches and official statements addressing insecurity, counterterrorism, and bilateral cooperation. Using the theoretical frameworks of Norman Fairclough and Teun A. van Dijk, the analysis focuses on strategies of agency construction, modality, and framing. Findings reveal that U.S. presidential discourse frames Nigeria within a global security paradigm, emphasizing crisis, moral obligation, and authority to intervene, portraying Nigeria as a fragile state needing stabilization. Conversely, Nigerian presidential rhetoric emphasizes sovereignty, institutional reform, resilience, and Nigerian-led solutions, framing cooperation as partnership rather than dependency. The study demonstrates that instability functions as a discursive resource, strategically mobilized to legitimize authority and shape international perceptions. Ultimately, political speeches do not generate insecurity, but serve to reproduce or contest global power hierarchies in the contemporary age of instability.