Metaphorical framing of democracy how Nigerian military dictators and civilian leaders talk to gain legitimacy

Abstract

Military dictatorships are inherently undemocratic, yet military leaders often frame democracy metaphorically. This raises critical questions: why do they do this, and how do their framings differ from civilian leaders? Existing studies on democratic conception provide limited answers. Addressing this paradox, this study employs mapping principle and discourse-conceptual analysis to examine the metaphorical contestation of democracy in Nigerian political discourse (NPD). Using a corpus of 338 speeches by military heads of state and civilian presidents (1960–2023), the analysis reveals metaphors as tools for legitimation and pre-legitimation. Six dominant source domains (SDs), journey, building, person, plant, machine, and war, emerged across both groups, but with notable differences. Military leaders favoured journey and plant, while civilian leaders preferred building and war. Mapping principle analysis highlights how journey and building metaphors create divergent argumentative frames, functioning as strategies of rationalisation, pre-legitimation, and conceptual flip-siding, reinforcing a hegemonic, elite-controlled conception of democracy.