THE RESILIENCE, THE HARDWORK, FOR A NEW NIGERIA SHOULD NOT WANE: SPEECH ACT ANALYSIS OF HIS EXCELLENCY, PETER OBI’S FIRST SPEECH AFTER THE 2023 NIGERIA’S PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

Abstract

Millions of Nigerians wore gloomy faces, while many contemplated taking to the streets with the declaration of the APC presidential candidate as the winner of the Nigerian Presidential poll. At the heat of the moment, His Excellency Peter Obi addressed the obedient movement to remain calm and allow justice take its course in the recovering of the mandate. This study on Peter Obi’s first speech after Nigeria’s 2023 presidential election is hinged on Austin (1975), speech act theory and Leech (1983), politeness maxims to ascertain how Peter Obi used language to manipulate the emotions of the obedient movement and dissuade them from taking to violence, assess the speech acts he employed to inform, appreciate or condemn the actors involved in the election process and examine the politeness maxims Obi adopted in his speech to elicit  hope for a better Nigeria was also x-rayed. A descriptive analysis on texts from his thirteen paragraph speech, expose dominant use of commissives, behavitives and exploitation of politeness principles. The paper therefore, recommends that people should always be mindful of their language use in order not to escalate already charged situation. Speech makers should also tailor their speeches to have conciliatory texture, so as to avert conflict.