IDEOLOGICAL REPRESENTATIONS OF HERDSMEN-FARMERS’ CONFLICT IN SELECTED NIGERIAN NEWSPAPERS

Abstract

Herdsmen-farmers’ conflict (HFC) is one of the major conflicts that has been widely reported in Nigeria. Extant linguistic studies on HFC in Nigerian newspapers focused mainly on linguistic framing, as well as discursive and lexical strategies used in HFC, with scant attention paid to the deployment of linguistic resources in projecting the ideologies around the conflict. This study was, therefore, designed to investigate the ideological representation of HFC, with a view to describing the social actors, discourse strategies, contextual variables, and the ideologies in the reports. Teun van Dijk’s socio-cognitive approach to Critical Discourse Analysis and Theo van Leeuwen’s Representation of Social Actors served as the framework. The descriptive design was used. Four Nigerian newspapers were purposively selected based on their circulation and reportage of the conflict. The Punch and the Vanguard were selected because of their national outlook, while Triumph and The Voice were chosen because of their regional appeal. The sampled editions of the newspapers were published between March, 2018 and March, 2021. This period recorded a surge in HFC as well as legislation and advocacy against violence. The data were subjected to critical discourse analysis. Eight representations of the herdsmen were identified: militants, marauders, invaders, killers, attackers, armed men, threats, and terrorists (Punch, Vanguard, and the Voice); invaders, attackers, innocent citizens and foreigners (Triumph). Three representations of farmers were observed: law-abiding people, displaced people and victims (Punch, Vanguard, Triumph and The Voice). Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders’ Association of Nigeria is represented using two discourse identities: mouthpiece and killers; government is constructed as law-enforcer, biased institution, pretender, and weak institution; and religious leaders are represented as mouthpiece, agents of peace, and victims (Punch, Vanguard, Triumph and The Voice). Victimhood is contextually negotiated as vulnerability, powerlessness and inadequate socio-economic and political empowerment. Eight discourse strategies are deployed to negotiate ideologies: passivisation, presuppositions, labelling, nominalisation, pronominal references, evidentiality, voice management and penchant for figures (Punch, Vanguard, Triumph and The Voice). The strategies are enhanced with six contextual variables to show that the media engagement of HFC is characterised by different ideologies: participants and their roles, setting, shared knowledge, and background knowledge (Punch, Vanguard, Triumph and The Voice). Six ideologies are projected: pacifist, humanist, egalitarian, religious, ethnic and political (Punch, Vanguard, Triumph and The Voice). While pacifist ideology calls for peace between the herdsmen and farmers, humanist ideology projects respect for human lives and egalitarian ideology echoes equality between herdsmen and farmers. Religious ideology stresses the supremacy of one religion over the other in the country, ethnic ideology foregrounds favouristism of one region in HFC, while political ideology reflects the political angle of HFC. These ıdeologıes connect inherent mistrust and hatred to promote HFC. Ideological representations of herdsmen-farmers’ conflict in Nigerian newspapers echo the distinctive roles of specific social actors in the conflict. Thus, the Nigerian government and other stakeholders managing the crisis should pay adequate attention to the media reportage of the crisis in order to understand its ideological dimension.