MODALITY FUNCTIONS IN PUBLIC OPINION ON THE 2015 NIGERIAN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION RESULTS IN THE NATIONAL NEWSPAPERS

Abstract

Public opinion columns in newspapers often provide vital information on electioneering. Studies in Nigerian political discourse have examined modality in debates and speeches with little attention paid to its functions in the diversity of public opinion on Nigerian Presidential election results. This study was, therefore, designed to investigate modality functions in public opinion on the 2015 Nigerian Presidential election results in the newspapers. This is in order to establish how modals help to construct meaning, which aids the understanding of public opinion on election results. The study adopted Halliday’s Systemic Functional Grammar as framework. A corpus of 190 items, including letters to the editor (60), opinion columns (70) and readers’ comments (60) on 2015 Nigerian Presidential election results were collected. The data was purposively collected from five newspapers published with robust content on public opinion. These newspapers were The Nation, The Guardian, Nigerian Tribune, Vanguard and The Punch published between March and April 2015. The data was subjected to discourse analysis. Public opinion was divided as to the acceptance or otherwise of 2015 Nigeria’s Presidential election. This yielded different viewpoints: peace and unity, obligation and social responsibility, historical victory, new dawn of democracy, condemnation, and sportsmanship associated with nationalistic, moralistic and historical grounds. The nationalistic ground, (‘It should be a unifying force... for genuine nationhood’) posited that the conduct of 2015 Presidential election was a positive pointer to national unity. The moralistic view (‘while congratulating Muhammadu Buhari, one must thank President Goodluck Jonathan for living up to his oath of office and promise that he would conduct a credible election’ ) saw the election as free and fair with the use of modal auxiliary verbs to depict obligation on the part of Nigerians to express gratitude to the out-going president; and responsibility on part of the out-going President in respect of his promise to conduct free and fair elections. The historical ground (‘Nigerians needed... not only reject violence but promote unity’), contrasted the presidential election with previous electoral experiences characterised by violence and acrimony. Also, the historical view (‘...we must forget our old battles, past grievances ...’), demonstrated by modal auxiliaries - ‘will’, ‘must’ and ‘should’ expressed obligation on the part of the elect and the electorate to allow peace to reign. Lexical modal verbs: ‘confirmed’, ’shown’ and ‘need to’ expressed affirmative reactions; while auxiliary verbs like ‘cannot’, ‘will not’, ‘may not’ expressed negative reactions, (‘The desperate and despicable show of shame exhibited by Orubebe confirmed the ruling party’s anti democratic plots against the people of Nigeria’), which implied that the election results were biased. Lexical modal verbs like ‘believe’, ‘thank’, ‘promised’, and modal auxiliaries such as‘must’, ‘should’ and ‘would’ expressed affirmative reactions that suggested moral and social obligations. Linguistic modalities, backed with nationalistic, moralistic and historical principles, were used to express varied public opinions on Nigeria’s 2015 Presidential election results. Thus, the combination of linguistic modalities is insightful for proper understanding of public opinion on election results as represented in the Nigerian context.