“I am here… to serve you”: pragmatic acts and strategies in the 2019 inaugural speeches of governors in Southwest Nigeria

Abstract

Inaugural speeches are delivered by political office holders to mark their transition to government, and present their vision and goals for whatever office they occupy. This paper carries out a pragmatic investigation of the inaugural speeches of selected governors in southwest, Nigeria. The data for the study were the inaugural speeches of Governors Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos State (GBS), Seyi Makinde of Oyo State (GSM), and Dapo Abiodun of Ogun State (GDA). The speeches were retrieved from two Nigerian newspapers: Dailypost and Premiumtimes who enjoy a relatively wide coverage in the country. This paper adopts Jacob Mey’s (2001) pragmatic acts theory as its tool for descriptive analysis, and uses statistical details for quantitative analysis. From the analysis of the inaugural speeches, it was discovered that thirty-five pragmatic acts were deployed by the governors to achieve six goals. The pragmatic acts performed in the speeches are predominantly negotiated through five pragmatic tools: relevance, reference, shared situational knowledge, voice and metaphor. The study reveals that the goals of the inaugural speeches are to present their vision for the state, win the favour of the people, appreciate others, present challenges in the state, influence attitude and stimulate citizenry to action. This paper concludes that the overarching goal of gubernatorial inaugural speeches is to aid the comprehension of the vision and mission of the governor during their tenure in office. Received: 17 October 2023 Accepted: 20 February 2024 Published: 09 May 2024

Keywords

• babajide sanwo-olu, dapo abiodun, inauguration, political office holders, political speeches, practs, rhetoric, seyi makinde