MULTIMODAL STANCE-TAKING IN SELECTED NIGERIAN GOVERNMENT POSTERS ON FUEL SUBSIDY REMOVAL POSTED ON X

Abstract

The 2023 fuel subsidy removal campaign by the Nigerian
government on X (formerly Twitter) was not only a national
campaign against corruption and problems bedevilling the oil
sector, but also a campaign to control the narrative and ideologically
position the state as a rational and transparent actor in the complex
economic realities. This paper applies multimodal discourse analysis
and the stance triangle to examine the discourse features of this
campaign and the role of stance in the evaluation of state actors in
the campaign discourse. The data for this study consists of ten (10)
purposively sampled posts (tweets) retrieved from verified Nigerian
government accounts on X. The findings reveal that the
government’s communication strategy hinges on rational,
technocratic, and institutionally legitimised stance moves aimed at
managing public sentiment and realigning perceptions of the policy
shift. Also, the findings reveal a deliberate attempt to control the
narrative around the subsidy removal through a combination of
visual reassurance, logical explanation, and economic realism. The
study concludes that multimodal texts function as strategic tools for
stance construction in contemporary political discourse as they can
be used to challenge and renegotiate official narratives.