Studies in Media and Ideological Representation of Herders / Farmers Conflict in Nigeria , livre ebook

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328 pages

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This book features articles from a spectrum of perspectives that are considered of direct consequence for the discourse on the conflict between herders and farmers in Nigeria. These perspectives include those from the broad ambit of social sciences and, specifically, views from history and political science in order to provide a broad historical ground for the understanding of the century-old fissures between ethnic nationalities, which have burgeoned into contemporary conflicts and violence.

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Publié par	Malthouse Press
Date de parution	05 mai 2023
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9789786020471
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	13 Mo

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Studies in Media and Ideological Representation ofHERDERS-FARMERS CONFLICT IN NIGERIA

Studies in Media and Ideological Representation of HERDERS-FARMERS CONFLICTINNIGERIAEdited by Gbenga Ibileye

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© Gbenga Ibileye 2022 First Published 2022 ISBN: 978-978-58297-0-2 Published byMalthouse Press Limited Lagos Benin City Jos Port Harcourt Zaria 43 Onitana Street, Off Stadium Hotel Road, Off Western Avenue, Lagos Mainland E-mail: malthouselagos@gmail.com Facebook:@malthouselagos Twitter:@malthouselagos Instagram:@malthouselagos Tel: 0802 600 3203 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, transcribed, stored in a retrieval system or translated into any language or computer language, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, magnetic, chemical, thermal, manual or otherwise, without the prior consent in writing of Malthouse Press Limited, Lagos, Nigeria. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade, or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in writing, in any form of binding or cover other than in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. International Distributors: African Books Collective, Oxford, UK Email: abc@africanbookscollective.com Website: http://www.africanbookscollective.com

PREFACE What began as isolated cases of skirmishes between farmers and migrant Fulani cattle herders in a few communities, especially in the north central region of Nigeria, has burgeoned into a national crisis which daily headlines the media space. The conflict is generally perceived by some to be a contestation for agricultural farmlands between migrant herders from northern Nigeria (and some say, from Niger and Chad) who graze their cattle for food and farmers who plant their crops for agricultural purposes. The destruction of the latter’s farmland by the activities of the former’s cattle, which in most cases is considered deliberate, is at the heart of the crisis. Arguments abound that bothgroups are engaged in economic activities and the activities of the herders should not be allowed to destroy the economic activities of the sedentary farmers, who are mostly on their ancestral lands being invaded by the migrant herders. Other interpretations are rife though. While some believe that there are subterranean attempts at territorial expansion by the Fulani, others see a religious intention embedded in the activities of the Fulani herders who are Muslims over the farmers who are mainly Christians. The crisis, because of its unique ethno-religious dimension and its politico-economic implication for national cohesion and unity, has instantiated its own unique kind of discourses across the media of communication, conventionalprint, electronic and emerging social media platforms such that we could say that the discourse on the herders-farmers conflict in Nigeria has a distinct linguistic character that can be subjected to critical ideological, discourse and pragmatic analysis. This is the goal of the present compilation which seeks to collate, investigate and analyse the ideological and discourse manifestation, especially of the media reportage of the herders-farmers conflict in Nigeria with the ultimate goal of unearthing its linguistic features and how those features implicitly communicate certain ideologies which might not be visible to the ordinary reader but which have a controlling effect on the outcome of communication. The work features articles from a spectrum of perspectives which are considered of direct consequence on the discourse on the conflict between

herders and farmers in Nigeria. These perspectives include those from the broad ambit of social sciences and specifically views from history and political science. This is in order to provide a broad historical ground for the understanding of the century-old fissures between ethnic nationalities, which have burgeoned into contemporary conflicts and violence, which in turn instantiate the emergence of the discourse under study. In this broad category are the contributions by Okpeh O. Okpeh and Al Chukwuma Okorie on “The media, farmer-herder conflict and the ‘Fulanization’ narrative in Nigeria” as well as “The Fulani World View: A Linguistic Perspective” by Babayo Muhammed Aliyu. There are contributions from the broad perspective of media practice in an attempt to situate media discourse within an ideological frame. Gbenga Solomon Ibileye’s “ideological and discoursal issues in reportage of herders-farmers conflict in Nigerian newspapers” and Blessing Inya and Onwu Inya’s “delegitimisation through evaluation: discursive appraisal of the national grazing reserve bill in online media discourse” are two of such chapters. Similarly are the contributions of Damilola Olamide Ajakaye and Dubamo Tomere titled “ideological representation of the e-images on herders-farmers conflict” as well as Jennifer Umezinwa’s “critical discourse analysis of the reportage of Fulani herdsmen-farmers conflict on Pulse Nigeria online news platform”. Apart from its different theoretical and methodological orientation, this latter chapter like the former also employs data from an online platform for its analysis. Emmanuel C. Sharndama’s “a critical discourse analysis of newspaper reports on herdsmen crisis in Benue and Plateau states of Nigeria” also employs an ideological orientation by using the Critical Discourse Analysis model for the analysis of the data from newspaper reportage of the crisis. Similarly are Olaoluwa Duro-Bello and Peter Ochefu Okpeh’s “discursive representation of social actors in media portrayal of herders/farmers crises in Nigeria” and Simeon Ajiboye’s “herdsmen’s identity construction in Nigerian online news reports.”These chapters are an attempt to disinter the implicit ideological communicative properties and intentions of the media in their reportage and commentary on the conflict.On a different wavelength of methodology and theory are chapters which explore multimodality in the compilation. These are the contributions by Simon Shachia Oryila titled “multimodal representation of herders-farmers conflict in Nigerian satirical cartoons” as well asJoy Oghogho Aworo-Okoroh and Jude Badaki’s “critical multimodal discourse analysis of herdsmen-farmers conflicts as depicted in selected online media narratives”. Three chapters; those by Ane Cynthia Ochoge on “ecolinguistic framing of farmers-herdsmen crisis - “the stories we live by” on Youtube”, Olaniyi Kaseem Oladimeji and Ahmed Oluwashola Salami’s “media reportage of

herders-farmers’ crisis in Nigeria: a pragmatic act study” and Rosarri C. Mbisike’s “Presupposition in selected Nigerian-based terror alarm messages on Whatsapp” adopt centrally based pragmatic approaches in the analysis of their respective data sets. However, they also still do possess an inclination for ideological exploration. The modest effort in this compilation serves as an exploratory and pioneering attempt at understanding the herders-farmer’s conflict in Nigeria from an essentially linguistic background by using dominantly linguistic theories to dissect data from the media reportage and other components of media practice such as cartoons, pictures and online chat room exchanges as resource materials. Gbenga Ibileye, PhD Professor Lokoja, Nigeria.

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FOREWORD

Herders-Farmers Conflict in Nigeria:Studies in Media and Ideological Representationsedited by Gbenga Ibileye, a seasoned discourse analyst, is an authoritative text that cannot come out at a better time than this when the Nigerian air is loudly saturated with tales of clashes with cows and herdsmen and the cacophony of needless war tunes. In the last many months, news about the suicidal activities of “foreign” herdsmen venting onslaughts on farmers, travellers and several categories of citizens have dominated the media space, attracted international attention and constituted one of the eminent concerns of the Nigerian law makers. Apart from the unprecedented and unwarranted heavy loss of lives, physical and emotional injuries inflicted on victims and palpable national tension, there is hung high in the Nigerian cloud the unfortunate loss of international patronage in economy, diplomacy, technical expertise, the academia and sundry other areas of national life. It is as much a norm to be guided by the common sense of restricted movements in certain zones within and outside one’s home, city and State as it is to be equipped with the common sense geography programmed with events and locations predominantly negatively labelled. All of these are necessitated by the ravaging herdsmanship! Problems of the magnitude of the picture painted above obviously are not tied to the umbilical cords of only the here and now; otherwise, the whole scenario is a hoax or a set of ghommid tales told in Wole Soyinka’sForest of a Thousand Demons. They are deeply seated in the Nigerian history, intra-regional relations of Nigeria with other African countries, multilingual discourses, policy errors, actional misadventures and fragile nationhood. This means that no sustainable solutions would emerge for the herders/farmers’ imbroglio and the multiplier havocs sprayed across national life if the underlying issues remain buried within the ideological coat. This is precisely whereStudies in Media and Ideological Representations of Herders/Farmers Conflict in Nigeriastrikes its relevance. In its 14 chapters, the book traverses elaborate grounds in the herders/farmers conflictual context, demonstrating in most instances the interface between the folks (herders, farmers, victims and others) and the

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local ecologies, and how the mediatisation. legalisation or illegitimisation of the conflicts (offence or defence) either run at level with the realities, tinker with or overtake them. However the media (in the broad sense) takes its angles, the issues are engaged from the anthropological, linguistic, (critical) discoursal and multimodal perspectives and are anchored to implications in the economy, politics, ethnicity, religion and security. The outcome is a clear anatomisation of the relationship between Fulani herdsmen and farmers and the several communicative and discourse resources utilised by and in the media to portray this relationship, and thus a clear solution-path understanding of the volatile relationship. I commend the book,Studies in Media and Ideological Representations of Herders/Farmers Conflict in Nigeria,to linguists of all callings, communication scholars, anthropologists, sociologists, psychologists, politicians, policy makers and all (non-) professionals who are interested in the origin, growth, festering, communication, mediatisation, ideologies and threateningly divisive consequences of herdsmanship and banditry in Nigeria. Akin Odebunmi, Professor of Pragmatics and Discourse Analysis, University of Ibadan & President, Pragmatics Association of Nigeria.