Discursive constructions of political opportunism in media interviews: analysing Nigeria’s electoral laws and judicial pronouncements on election petitions
Résumé
Electoral petitions have become a feature of Nigeria’s democratic processes, exploited by politicians for opportunistic purposes. This study offers an in-depth illustration of how political opportunism is discursively constructed in media interviews. The study employed a qualitative single-case design, using thematic analysis of a televised expert interview to identify trends, attributes, and features of political opportunism. An in-depth interview, lasting 49 min and 41 s, from ‘Politics Today’ on Channels Television, a renowned news station in Nigeria, served as the case study. The interview featured Mr. Femi Falana, a seasoned lawyer and a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, who is an expert in electoral litigation. Questions centred on electoral laws and ambiguities in the judgements of both the Appeal and Supreme Courts regarding governorship and presidential election petitions. The video was downloaded from the news outlet’s official YouTube channel and transcribed into textual form, which was subjected to content and thematic analyses using Michael Franke’s Game-Theoretic Pragmatics and Jacob Mey’s Pragmatic Acts Theory as the framework. Findings showed four patterns of political opportunism: intentional opportunism, collective opportunism, selective opportunism, and precedent opportunism. Constitutional and electoral laws were interpreted by political actors using intentional permutations, conscious misinterpretation, and personal assumptions for opportunistic gains. Pragmatic game strategies such as metaphor, relevance, reference, presupposition, and inference were employed to highlight political opportunism. The study concludes that vague electoral laws and petitions provide fertile grounds for political opportunism; this reinforces the need for Nigerian judges to deliver clear judgements, while the legislature should clarify electoral laws to curb political opportunism.
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