HATE SPEECH AND NATIONAL COHESION

Abstract

The use of hate speech by Nigerian politicians on social media, national dailies and television channels is alarming. Hate speech is any abhorrent utterance, gesture, writing or form of linguistic behaviour which could provoke people to harmful action and reaction. Such speech derogates and robs the target audience of their dignity. This study specifically examines the phenomenon of hate speech by Nigerian politicians to find out its linguistic implicatures in national cohesion. Extracting data from social media, national dailies and television channels, this work qualitatively analyses the data using cooperative principles’ theoretical framework. The results of the finding show the evidence of quadruple maxims of the cooperative principle: quantity, quality, relevance and manner. In essence, the study reveals that the hate speech of Nigerian politicians is informative; albeit, it breaks some of the maxims of the cooperative principle. The study, therefore, shows traces of falsity, lack of adequate evidence, sarcasm, irrelevance, and unnecessary brevity. The analyses demonstrate that Nigerian politicians impolitely make hate speech against their political opponents across political parties, regions, religions, and ethnicity. In adherence to the tenets of the cooperative principle, the ‘implicatures’ of the speech act are incitement to national incoherence, political violence, regional hatred, religious intolerance and ethnic bickering. Premised on the above adverse effects of hate speech, this study advocates for the appropriate prosecution of any partisan or political party who violates the Prohibition Acts of hate speeches to avoid an incidence of a debacle in Nigeria as recorded in Bosnia, Herzegovina, Kenya and Rwanda years ago.