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142A multimodal analysis of memetic representation of individuals and institutions in Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari administration
Research Article
Oluwayemisi Olusola Adebomi
Abstract
This study focuses on a linguistic and pictorial analysis of the way personalities and institutions in the present All Progressives Congress (APC) led national government in Nigeria are represented through social media memes. The study adopts Van Leeuwen's social semiotic model with a blend of Fairclough's socio-cultural method of critical discourse studies as theoretical models. The social media memes were purposely sourced from Facebook. These memes numbering about twenty-eight capture different aspects of national life under Buhari government. They were gathered over a period of four years, between 2015 and 2019. These were subjected to both pictorial and simple descriptive linguistic analysis. The study reveals that memes serve as a means of social and political expression. Memes are also culture sensitive, that is, each society can use memes to represent issues that are peculiar to them. Nigerians use the memes selected for this study to show their disapproval for the important personalities and major institutions in the Buhari led national government. This study projects that social media memes are a platform for the assessment of government, its key players and their activities within the Nigerian political landscape and that memes count in the construction of political ideology in Nigeria.
Keywords
social media; political memes; representation; ideology
Received:
1 May 2020 Reviewed: 15 May 2020 Accepted: 20 May 2020 Published: 7 June 2020
UDC: 8142
Department of General Studies, the Federal University of Technology Akure, P.M.B. 704, Akure, Ondo State, Nigeria
Corresponding author:
Dr. Oluwayemisi Olusola Adebomi (Ms.), yemisioadebomi@gmail.com
For citation:
Adebomi, Oluwayemisi Olusola. 2020. "A multimodal analysis of memetic representation of individuals and institutions in Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari administration." Language. Text. Society 7 (1). https://ltsj.online/2020-07-1-adebomi.
Language. Text. Society
Vol. 7 No. 1, 2020 ISSN 2687-0487
Introduction
The social media has become one of the major means of globalisation. Like many people in other parts of the world, the presence of Nigerians on social media platforms have become massive. Hence, in the most recent time, these platforms have become the site for the dissemination of information, a means of education and a site for the expression of interest/disinterest for personalities and institutions among several other functions which they serve. The social media have several platforms which include Twitter, Facebook, Skype, Snapchat, WhatsApp, Telegram and Instagram. Different formats of information are also made available on these platforms. These include audiovisuals, texts, Graphic Interchange Formats (GIFs) and pictures. The social media have proven to be a site for the experimentation of language use as well as a platform for the expression of beliefs. Consequently, researchers, especially within the linguistic and other related fields, have continued to examine the way linguistic and non-verbal modes have been used to express socio-political concerns in the social media.
An important messaging format which has particularly caught the attention of analysts (Ademilokun and Olateju 2016; DeCook 2018) is the category referred to as memes. A meme is an image or video that represents the thoughts and feelings of a specific audience. Memes are a worldwide social phenomenon and an increasingly important aspect of viral marketing and social engagement. Even though memes are usually humorous (Shifman 2013), they express a wide range of messages: religious, political, sociological and economic. A major benefit of memes is that they provide an avenue for improved engagement and they could be inherently ideological (Holmes and Marra 2002).
Suffice it to say that memes are culture-sensitive, that is, each society can use memes to represent issues that are peculiar to them. The term itself was coined by Richard Dawkins, a biologist who believes that cultural ideas are like genes. He argues that societal concepts spread from brain to brain, multiplying and mutating thereby (Dawkins 1976). Little wonder Nigerians are quick to express their perceptions about personalities and institutions within the present political landscape through memes. Lately, the number of memes used to express perceptions about the Nigerian socio-political situation has proliferated. Yet, literature is scanty on a linguistic cum pictorial analysis of these representative memes. The present study is an effort in this regard.
The political situation in Nigeria
Until 1999, Nigeria witnessed a number of changes in government, a shift from military to civilian rule and vice versa. Out of its 60 years of existence, Nigeria witnessed the longest stretch of democratic governance only from 1999 till today. Military government is usually characterised by forceful leadership. Even though military heads of state in Nigeria supposedly rule by decrees and sometimes unilaterally take decisions without consultations and dialogue, it is arguable that a magnitude of underground politics plays out during these military administrations. Some of the features that characterise military administration (such as plotting coups and counter-coups, backstabs and betrayals among high ranking military officers) have found their way into the democratization process in Nigeria.
Events unfolding in the last twenty-one years of democratic rule in Nigeria have revealed that civilian government is not devoid of force. The only major area of difference is that while military government is largely considered as forceful, Nigeria's democracy is being run as a quasi-military outfit; a little bit of force with a blend of some level of civility. This is what former president of Nigeria, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo referred to as the carrot and stick approach (Obasanjo 2013). Consequently, the manner of democratic administration has elicited outcries amongst different groups and categories
of people in the country. Majority of Nigerians are of the opinion that twenty-one years down the line, expectations have not been met, and many of the nagging problems that were experienced during military rule which made the call for the return to democracy rife still predominantly feature in national life.
Little wonder (Bakare 2013) opines that what is being practised in Nigeria is not democracy but kleptocracy. According to him, the immediate outlook is a landscape dotted with a few men and women who are suddenly and inexplicably rich.
You wake up in the morning and there are all these men and women who own property in towns and villages all over Nigeria and abroad; you wake up and you are in a country where wealth is counted but not character; a country where mediocrity is rewarded with National Honours and lucrative contracts. This is how kleptocracy works. (Bakare 2013)
He argues further that years after independence, and in spite of the huge amount of money accruing from the nation's oil sector, the gap between the rich and the poor has widened beyond imagination. He notes that just a few Nigerians have unimaginable wealth that is paralleled only by the astonishing poverty of most of the people. He posits that while many African countries yearn for a courageous, patriotic leadership, Nigeria allows itself to be manipulated by a "duplicitous, mediocre cabal" (Bakare 2013).
Apart from Bakare (2013), several other well meaning Nigerians have attempted to lend their voice to condemn the unfavourable situations that Nigerians are believed to be exposed to. Lately, one of the most popular ways by which people challenge the status quo is by pouring out their minds using social media platforms, importantly through memes. For Nigerians, memes is believed to be an escape route from facing the wrath of the present All Progressives Congress (APC) led national government which is perceived to be abusive. Many individuals who have openly showed disapproval of the present APC government's leadership style have ended up being persecuted. The case of a young man who named his dog Buhari and ended up in prison is an instance. The government itself seems to be aware of people's reservations. This possibly accounts for why it mulled the idea of establishing a hate speech law to regulate some of the public outpour before the bill was dropped due to massive condemnation. So, for its users, memes are considered safe, especially because such memes conceal the identity of their authors.
Literature review
Studies have considered various ways through which memes have been used to convey messages. Grundlingh (2018) explicates the way internet users often use memes to reply to each other on social networking sites or other online platforms. He argues that memes are successfully used to communicate the desired message. He notes further that memes can be created for different purposes and as such, they could be classified as speech acts. Even though the present study is not in the realm of pragmatics, we agree that memes are created to serve different purposes. In line with Grundlingh's (2018) argument that memes serve different purposes in the communication process, Yeku (2018) analyses the various ways Nigerians participate in the 2015 electoral process through the use of memes. He notes that "as the 2019 election approaches, [Nigerians] continue to archive their interactions with power structures through the agency of hashtags and internet memes" (Yeku 2018, 217).
Tella (2018) also investigates the deployment of memes to represent the Nigerian political situation during the 2015 general elections. They look at the integrative deployment of internet memes
to generate humour and create definite frames for the two major presidential candidates in the 2015 Nigerian general elections. He observes that supporters of election candidates use humorous internet memes for negatively portraying opponents and for positive representation of the favoured candidates. He notes that the negative other-representations serve the purpose of depreciating the electoral values of the opponents and indirectly increase the electoral chances of their preferred candidates. Onanuga and Ajao (2017) carry out a multimodal analysis of the online memetic representations of former Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan. They subject about twenty memes representing Jonathan to semiotic analysis and argue that there is a prevalence of negative memes which they assume could have contributed to the former president's defeat in the 2015 general elections. They argue further that the prevalence of such negative memes suggest the need for government to develop a citizen-centred dialogue approach through engagement in traditional and current media.
Alfred (2019) considers the complementary relationship that exists between verbal and visual signifiers in internet memes. She adopts Kress' multimodal social semiotics approach to explain the way the selected social media memes reflect the negative disposition of text producers to the leadership style and agenda of the All Progressives Congress (APC) president-elect. She reports that memes about the APC change slogan are used to express displeasure over the socio-economic realities in Nigeria and to dissuade viewers from voting for the APC in future elections.
Durotoye (2020) analyses the way social media users explore Twitter memes in reinstating their views on critical discourses in the Nigerian polity. He argues that intermediality promotes dynamism of opinion characterised by technological innovation. He notes further that Twitter memes enhance the expression of political agency and furtherance of critical engagement within the Nigerian political domain. As literature has revealed, various efforts have been geared towards establishing the various purposes that social media memes serve, especially within the Nigerian political landscape. However, none of the available studies address the objective of the present study, which is an analysis of the memetic representation of perceptions about individuals and institutions under the APC political dispensation.
Theoretical framework
The study adopts Theo Van Leeuwen's (2005) social semiotic model with a blend of Norman Fairclough's socio-cultural method of critical discourse studies. This is because, as Van Leeuwen (2005) argues, social semiotics is not a pure theory and it is not a self-contained field. It only comes into its own when it is applied to specific instances and specific problems, and it always requires immersing oneself not just in semiotic concepts and methods as such but also in some other field. This model pursues three major goals: collect, document and systematically catalogue the history of semiotic resources; investigate how these resources are used in specific historical, cultural, and institutional contexts, and how people talk about them in specific contexts; and contribute to the discovery and development of new semiotic resources and new uses of semiotic resources. The model focuses on meaning making, meaning makers and the ways in which specific institutional and broader social contexts govern the use of semiotic resources (Djonov and Zhao 2017).
In essence, social semiotics is also a body of critical and interpretive theory, it focuses largely on the contextual interpretation of semiotic resources. Herein lies its relationship with Fairclough's (1995) Critical Discourse Studies (CDS) framework which identifies interpretation as one of the threefold levels of linguistic analysis, the others being description and explanation. The interpretation stage in CDS, also Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), investigates how the text analyst relates the result of the linguistic practices, the socio-cultural practices and the social practices that inform the
production of the text together. This stage is also concerned with the relationship between text and interaction, vis-a-vis the relationship between text and social structures, which is usually an indirect but mediated one. The stage focuses on discourse processes and their dependence on background assumptions.
Importantly, this CDS model entails a critical discourse analysis of a communicative interaction to show that the semiotic and linguistic features of the interaction are systematically connected and that there is a link between discourse and the society where such a text or semiotic resource is produced (Caldas-Coulthard, Rosa and Coulthard 1999). Suffice it to say that by Fairclough's CDS we imply that Halliday's Systemic Functional Linguistics is incorporated. This allows for the systematic elicitation of meaning in the discourse. Hence, meaning is generated in the course of providing adequate interpretation to the semiotic resources, which in this case are social media memes.
Material and methods
The data used for this study were purposely sourced from Facebook. These social media memes numbering about twenty-eight (28) capture different aspects of national life under Buhari government. They were gathered over a period of four (4) years, between 2015 and 2019. These were subjected to both pictorial and simple descriptive linguistic analysis. By their nature, social media memes often bear very scanty linguistic descriptions. In fact, some of them do not bear verbal codes at all. They are mere pictures. More so, some of these memes have clear messages while others express cryptic messages. These are some of the features of the memes selected for this study. The pictorial cum linguistic features are analysed with a view to explaining their various functions in the text.
Results and discussion
In the following subsection, the analysis of the various memes for this study is presented. Suffice it to state that these memes represent major government institutions: the executive, the legislative and the judiciary. The focus is on the way key players in these arms of government are represented.
The executive
The executive arm of the government is its administrative arm. It exercises authority and holds the responsibility for the governance of a State or nation. This arm comprises the president, at the federal level, and members of his cabinet such as ministers as well as other political appointees such as the heads of major government institutions like the Independent National Electoral Commission (in the case of Nigeria). Some of the major players in the Buhari-led government are represented thus:
In search of a solution, Nigeria found a problem.
T*
Presidents are usually products of an election. They are not military dictators who rule by decrees. Being democratically elected, the role of the electorates is often very crucial in the appointment of presidents. Ironically, in the above, the President, who should be the leader of the masses, is portrayed as the problem of Nigeria. The meme captures the dissatisfaction with Buhari and his government. Unfortunately too, the masses are blamed for their involvement in the election of Buhari. This is expressed in the expression: "in search of a solution". It is, apparently, the masses who requested for new and better leadership, a better one at that, but in the end, what they got is a "problem".
I don't want to go to school, Mummy! I want to become a politician, after all, Buhari has no certificate!
One of the major problems Nigerians seem to have with the Buhari leadership is his perceived deception, especially with respect to his secondary school leaving certificate. The existence/authenticity of Buhari's West African Examination Council (WAEC) certificate was subject of debate on social media platforms and beyond several times. Even though several media reports and political efforts are deployed by Buhari and his men to disprove claims that he does not have a WAEC Certificate, Nigerians seem not to be persuaded. This explains the reason for the memes above. Nigerians, arguably, believe that if something that is considered mundane like a WAEC certificate could generate several efforts of cover-ups, court injunction and counter injunctions, then, there can be no basis to believe in Buhari's anti-corruption crusade. The perception is, if Buhari cannot be sincere with his academic qualification, he cannot claim to be incorruptible.
THE MOST CORRUPT, CLUELESS LYING, UNAWARE UNINFORMED,
DIVISIVE, INCOMPETENT,
UNHINGED, PATHETIC EXCUSE FOR A PRESIDENT IN THE HISTORY OF MANKIND.
In the meme above, Nigeria's President Buhari is described in strong negative terms. He is regarded as 'corrupt' and 'lying'. A corrupt individual is morally perverted, while a lying person is one who cannot be held by their words. They make many untrue statements. The reason for this negative reference could not be far from the fact already established. Buhari could not have proven himself to be free of lies if it took several efforts to defend an ordinary WAEC certificate. Furthermore, people have expressed their disapproval for the lopsidedness of political appointments under Buhari. Many people have argued that many of his appointments, especially into sensitive political positions, exhibit flagrant departure from the quota system principle. He is also believed to be clueless because of the claims, buttressed by his own wife, the first lady of Nigeria, Aisha, that the president is being controlled by a set of people, known as the cabal. This argument is further established in the meme below:
TV
i
REMOTE CONTROL
A television and its remote control both constitute a part of an electronic set. The remote control is, however, believed to be more powerful than the television itself, which is merely a box. As the name suggests, the remote controls the television. Without it, the television may malfunction or even be rendered useless. The immediate past Chief of Staff to Buhari, late Abba Kyari, is regarded as the remote control, while the president is a mere television. This suggests that the deceased chief of staff was believed to have wielded great powers. He was believed to be more powerful than the president himself, being the one who dictated what the president did or did not do. He was sometimes even referred to as the de-facto president of Nigeria. With the passing of Kyari, many have argued that the gross incompetence of Buhari would be blown in the open because the former was believed to have covered many grounds for the latter. Meanwhile, another school of thought also believes that Kyari's death would allow for the natural governance order to take its course.
The meme above expresses the perception about Buhari's cluelessness and confused state. The president's face is seen facing the front while remaining part of his body faces the backward position. This suggests Buhari's divided personality and people's loss of trust in him. If he says he is going forward, he should not be trusted because a part of him is actually moving backward. He claims to bring a change whereas it is believed that the masses suffer more under his administration. The memes below send a similar message:
Buhari's indifference to the plight of the masses is expressed in the memes above. It takes a man who has just enjoyed a delicious meal to be picking his tooth. Also, for Buhari, it does not matter whether any other person has something to eat or not, only he is well fed. This further expresses the disapproval of Buhari by the masses and his portrayal as one who is self-seeking and self-serving. The text in the meme below is credited to one of the supposedly strong allies of Buhari, Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
The Man Who Saw 2morow But Got Confused...
"Muhammadu Buhari is an agent of destabilization, ethnic bigot and religious fanatic who if given the chance would ensure the disintegration of the country. His ethnocentrism would jeopardize Nigeria's national unity."
— Bola Tinubu in 2003.
Like the memes already discussed above, negative terms are used to describe Buhari. He is referred to as an 'ethnic bigot' and 'religious fanatic'. A bigot is highly intolerant of other people's opinions and beliefs. He considers himself as the only one who can do things in the acceptable manner. A fanatic is also one who exhibits excessive enthusiasm towards a cause; in Buhari's case, religion. Tinubu identified Buhari's ability/intention of disintegrating the country. Even though both Tinubu and Buhari now belong to the same camp, many of his allegations against the latter are what Nigerians now accuse him of. Little wonder, Tinubu himself was described as a 'confused' person. He saw all the flaws in Buhari and still goes ahead to join forces with him. Hence, for Nigerians, Buhari is not the only
problem but individuals like Tinubu who hide the truth because of what they tend to benefit from government.
Another important personality in the Buhari government is the Vice-President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo. Like his boss, Osinbajo is represented in the memes presented below:
Tvfcpie Sir. (vhgtTOTS or* SM corretarwia about <QC of power whar shoüdttHthem?
BkAir J Gc and td them oI power bfxflqs to J*&&. lam jjst o iw I com lui inyte*
V ITlli s tnt Of Uif promis«, We NQerUra
My ,
HmiwmitBifl M
Copy Video Address
In the above memes, Osinbajo is portrayed as the conscience of the Buhari administration. He is the one who reminds the president about their inability to provide adequate power supply to the people. He also goes ahead to remind the president about the numerous promises that were made to Nigerians during the election campaigns which have remained unfulfilled. Buhari's responses to Osinbajo's information, however, reveal that Buhari is not committed to fulfilling his electioneering promises. The memes also lay bare Osinbajo's subordination to his boss. This is captured in his posture while interacting with the president. Without any labels, it is easy to identify who is the boss and who the subordinate is in the memes. The following memes further buttress Osinbajo's representation as the mediator between the presidency and the masses.
Oshibanjo: Sir, Now that Big Brother is over, what's the next thing we can use to Olinbajo: Boss, we have checked Peter obi distract dis peopte b(or they come for us?
records, he's clean...
Buhari: Don't worry i already told BBC to Buhari : Then let'* tell the people that h( start the Lecturers Case. We die here i.
was the same Peter that denied Jesus thre times.
M
In the memes above, Osinbajo is portrayed as the one doing the brain work. He is the one who notifies the president about a particular tactic that has failed. He informs the president that the effort to drag an opponent, Peter Obi, in the mud did not yield any result. In the other meme, he reminds the president of the need to be alive to his responsibilities because the distracter, Big Brother show, has ended. Osinbajo is presented as the intermediary between the people and the presidency. He is the one who feels the pulse of the people and relays such to his boss. The subordination of Osinbajo is also projected through these memes. He is always giving reports to the president and expects to be given orders on the next line of action.
THE IRONY OF LEADERSHIP IN 20TH CENTURY
President I Vice President
Grade II Cert. |BSc .Ph^un»*^»»«»^
THE IRONY OF LEADERSHIP IN 21ST CENTURY
Nigerians largely perceive Osinbajo to be better qualified as Nigeria's leader than President Buhari. In the meme above, the numerous academic qualifications of the Vice-President are enumerated. He is a professor, the highest rank in the academics. He is not merely a high ranking academic, he is a professor of law, which signifies his ability to differentiate his right hand from his left. He is a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), the highest rank any member of the Nigerian Bar can attain. All these underscore Osinbajo's academic prowess and explain why many see him as the ideal. Ironically, he is a subordinate to a man whose WAEC Certificate status is unknown. Osinbajo's placement in the presidency is perceived to be awkward and a reflection of the confused state of many Nigerian minds and the inequities which characterise the nation's political permutations. Apart from the president and his vice, ministers are an important part of the federal executive council. Two ministers, who have been in Buhari's cabinet since his first tenure in office, are represented through the following memes:
If this cap enter your head, you go lie till eternity Do you know who owns the cap7
Information is power. People act or react based on the magnitude of information at their disposal. Hence, the ministry of information is considered as one of the most important offices in any administration. The Information Ministry usually serves as the image maker of government. Little wonder many Information Ministers are propagandists. The Minister of Information under President Buhari is Mr. Lai Mohammed. His trademark is the cap captured in the meme above. Even though no name is mentioned, the meme attempts to shade the Information Minister. A cap signifies the head, and by extension the whole of a person. Mr. Mohammed has been accused several times of misleading the public, saving the face of the president, telling a lot of lies to cover up for the perceived ineptitude of the All Progressives Congress (APC) government led by Muhammadu Buhari. Some Nigerians have even gone as far as adulterating his first name to read 'lie', rather than Lai. Much as the Information Minister is expected to build a positive image for the government, many Nigerians believe that the Information Minister does more of misinformation rather than image making. The Minister of Works, Housing and Power, Babatunde Raji Fasola is represented in the memes below:
FASHOLA:
Your Excellency, there's no bad road anywhere in this country. For example, look at Calabar-Hu road here.
Pis tell me, how did you expect him to know d conditions of our road. ^Nonsense
Ministers in Nigeria, unarguably, belong to the upper class. They have access to the good things of life which include travelling anywhere by air. The normal practice would have been that a Minister of Works would be familiar with the state of infrastructure in the country but the opposite is the case. Apparently uncomfortable with road transportation, the minister sleeps off during a road trip, thereby missing the opportunity to acquaint himself with the state of Nigerian roads, which an average Nigerian plies on a daily basis. In the second meme, the Minister shows a 3D image of a road construction to the president and the latter looks at it with admiration. This shows the level of unfamiliarity the president has with his area of jurisdiction as well as the ability of the Minister to be deceitful.
1,045 of 1,370
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The meme above bears the images of the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Adams Oshiomole, the Ministers of transport, Rotimi Amaechi; information, Lai Mohammed; and works and power, Babatunde Fasola in a kneeling position and holding heavy objects as a sign of punishment. Even though these individuals appear to be above the law within the Buhari administration, Nigerians show their disapproval of these cabinet members by portraying them as liars who refuse to give Nigerians adequate or reliable information about the true state of things. Also, even though these men are highly placed in the Buhari government, they do not earn much respect in the minds of the people.
government is fixing
i7
APC vote be Like ijebu garri E go rise wen I reach INIC Collation centre
The inadequacies of the Buahri-led APC national government are expressed in the memes above. In this first one, an effort is made at portraying APC's election rigging attitude. Election figures are compared to Ijebu garri, the type of cassava flour which appears very dry after processing but becomes bloated once it is soaked in water. The implication of this meme is that the APC is believed to make the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), which is supposed to be an unbiased umpire, rig elections in the APC's favour simply because the party heads the national government. the meme is not only an attempt to shade the APC, it also reveals the incompetence and the dependence of a supposedly independent electoral body. In the second meme, a young boy is seen trying to use his mouth to inflate the tyre of a vehicle. This depicts the belief that the APC is using impossible means to resolve Nigeria's problems. It reveals the unseriousness of the Buhari-led APC national government.
The meme below reveals the inability of the APC to focus on the things that matter, such as fixing Nigeria's problems.
Home » Politics » I have no intention of joining "coronavinjs infected'APC -Fayose
I have no intention of joining 'corondtfiruT" infected'AKU — Fayose
FEBRUARY 22,2020 "M PMITICS
2023 ambition destro^iilfiAPC like cacHnavirusT says Tinubu
Buhari, a product of the APC has barely spent a year in his second term of four years in office, yet, his party members are already strategising ahead of 2023. Politicking within the APC is so rife that it is being described by both a member of the party; Bola Tinubu, and a member of the opposition party, Ayo Fayose, as coronavirus. Equating the nature of politicking within the APC with the deadly coronavirus portrays the members of the APC as well as the party itself as destructive and deadly. The National Chairman of the APC, Adams Oshiomole, is another individual who is believed to have provided an unenviable kind of leadership for the political party. He is represented in the following memes:
In the memes above, Oshiomole is portrayed variously as a power hungry individual. He is referred to as a Rt. Hon as well as a Bishop, two conflicting roles, especially within the Nigerian political landscape. Trusted clerics seldom involve themselves with Nigeria's politics. But here, Oshiomole is presented a Rt. Honourable, to depict his love to give laws and orders, whether they are favourable or unfavourable to party members. He also sees himself as the spiritual head of the APC, and as such should be seen as always right and unquestionable. The meme also suggests a mockery of Oshiomole who is adorned with a black robe, as if he is the spiritual head of an occult group, in this case the APC. Oshiomole's lust for power and dictatorial kind of leadership is projected through the second meme above where he is captured wearing a full military uniform bearing several stars.
The legislative
The legislative arm is another important component in a federal government. The legislature, under Buhari, is represented through the following memes:
The National Assembly, both the House of Representatives and the Senate, constitute the legislative arm of government at the federal level in Nigeria. These two legislative chambers have not been devoid of its series of drama and power tussle. Rather than make appropriate laws for the people, the Nigerian National Assembly appears to be a habitation of self-seeking individuals. These power tussles have usually revealed the caliber of men elected by Nigerians as their representatives in both the green and the red chambers. The first meme reveals one of those rowdy sessions on the floor of the Senate and an effort by an individual to escape with the maze, the very symbol of lawmaking in the National Assembly. The maze seizer is believed to have been sponsored by a member of the Senate,
Ovie Omo-Agege, in an effort to stop the Saraki-led Senate from promulgating a law that is perceived to be anti-Buhari.
In the second meme, Omo-Agege is seen flaunting the maze in what appears to be a prophetic action. Omo-Agege's action is considered prophetic because he indeed gained access to power, just like the way he grabbed the maze, which is a symbol of power. He was rewarded with the position of the Deputy President of the Senate in the Eighth Republic. The third meme captures another rowdy session in the National Assembly, the House of Representatives. Instead of waiting to resolve whatever the imbroglio is about, the Speaker of the House, Femi Gbajabiamila is seen scaling the fence in a bid to escape. This validates the perception about the Nigerian National Assembly, with reference to its leaders, as incompetent. The next set of memes is used to represent the judiciary under Buhari's government.
The judiciary
The judiciary is the third arm of government in federalism. Suffice to state here that these three arms are expected to be independent of each other. The judiciary, especially, is expected to be a mediator and the hope of the masses, an arbiter of justice of sort. Unfortunately, the judiciary under Buhari is perceived to be corruptible and characterised with perversion of justice as well as politicisation of the judicial system. The first meme depicts the abnormalities that are considered to be associated with the judiciary under Buhari. The fact that the symbol of justice is bending provides a clue that no sincere judgment can emanate from this kind of Bench. Even though the judiciary should run independently, the reverse is the case under Buhari. Judicial decisions under the Buhari led government is subject to the whims of the executive. This is why the second meme above reveals that the presidency, through Buhari's Transport Minister, Rotimi Amaechi; Niger-Delta Minister, Godswill Akpabio; Justice Minister, Abubakar Malami, and Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, masterminded the removal of a Chief Justice of Nigeria, Samuel Walter Nkanu Onoghen.
Conclusion
This study focused on the multimodal analysis of the memetic representation of personalities and institutions in the Muhammadu Buhari led Nigerian national government. The study deploys a combination of Theo van Leeuwen's socio-semiotic model and Norman Fairclough's socio-cultural approach to CDS as theoretical framework. These models are deployed to systematically explain the pictorial and textual information in these memes.
A major ideology that permeates the various memes analysed in the study is the debacle of Nigerian politics and leaders. The success or failure of a government is dependent on the nature/caliber of people making up that government. Nigeria, in its present state, is a product of bad leadership. Another ideology that is foregrounded in the analysis is the belief that with education comes sensibility. This is why Vice-President Osinbajo is represented as one person in government who seems to understand what governance is about. This could largely be attributed to his level of education. However, his impact is not really felt in government because a single head cannot make any difference in the midst of many seemingly self serving individuals.
The confused state of Nigerian electorates is also suggested in the memes. Nigerians appear to be electorally immature to determine what constitutes good or bad leadership. Despite all efforts to put better leaders in place, they keep enthroning people who tend to pursue personal rather than common interest. In essence, Nigerian political system is conceived as merely rigmarole, different political parties, but the same old ideology of mass suppression of the masses.
In summary, the study suggests that memes are deployed to express total disapproval of the three arms of government under President Buhari.
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