A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF “WEEP NIGERIA” AND JA’AFARU’S “ECONOMIC HARDSHIP IN NIGERIA”

Abstract

This research carried out a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) of  Jamilu Ja'afaru's Economic Hardship in Nigeria and Chinedu Nnadi Nwangwu's Weep Nigeria to critically analyze how the poetic language constructs and critiques the socio-political condition of Nigeria. Picking up its cues from Fairclough's three-dimensional CDA model, the research investigated the textual, discursive, and social practice levels of the poems. A qualitative exploratory research design was used, where major stanzas were purposively chosen and read for their figurative language, ideological alignment, and socio-political critique. The research indicates the two poets use metaphor, personification, symbolism, and rhetorical question in portrayal of national grieving, economic downturn, and political disillusionment. Discursively, the poems are counter-narratives, challenging hegemonic state speech, unveiling corruption, and satirizing selective government action towards crises. At the social practice level, they redefine individual suffering as public experience, addressing readers in a call to action and resistance. Nigerian poetry is recognized by the study as a powerful socio-political instrument, moving between experience and critique and giving voice to public grievance. CDA succeeds in unearthing hidden power relations and producing critical awareness, pointing to poetry's potential for the creation of solidarity and provoking a narrative of survival and national rebirth.