In linguistics, most studies on rhetoric are approached from the perspective of persuasive ideologies of social actors such as community, religious, and political leaders with a concentration on their speeches and the impacts of the speeches on their followers and society at large. As a result, music as a form of persuasion and political strategy has been under-researched. This paper investigates the rhetoric embedded in politically-motivated musical renditions in the post-2015 elections in Nigeria and identifies ideologies of persuasion, pragmatic choice(s), and implications of the narratives on the Nigerian political landscape. Mey’s pragmatic acts serve as the theoretical base. Two popular and viral musical renditions in (Nigerian pidgin) English from social media were selected for the study. Analysis of the selected songs which critiqued the leadership style of President Muhammadu Buhari from two opposing angles was carried out. Both songs exhibited the Pragmemic activity of (in)direct speech acts as well as conversational and psychological acts through their rhythm and lyrics adapted from Harry Song’s popular ‘Reggae Blues’ and re-titled as ‘The (Change/Truth) Blues’. Musical political rhetoric relies on co-texts conveyed through verifiable information, (satiric) visuals, history, antecedents, and socio-political realities and sentiments as strategies of persuasion. The pragmatic acts employed include narrating, condemning, accusing and counter-accusing, blaming, justifying, (partial) veiling, threatening, hoping, and praying. The study reveals the political consciousness and conflicting perceptions of some Nigeria citizens in governance and makes a case for ‘truth awareness’ among the governed. Citizens’ active participation and better access to information about the political leadership of the day is, therefore, advocated. All these are invaluable for the reposing of trust in the government and also engender citizens’ active participation.

中文翻译：

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尼日利亚2015年后选举中的音乐修辞学的语用学

在语言学中，大多数修辞学的研究都是从诸如社区，宗教和政治领袖等社会行为者的有说服力的意识形态的角度进行的，这些思想者集中于他们的演讲以及演讲对他们的追随者和整个社会的影响。结果，人们对音乐作为一种说服力和政治策略的形式进行了研究。本文调查了尼日利亚2015年后大选中出于政治动机而产生的音乐演绎中嵌入的修辞，并确定了说服意识形态，务实选择以及叙事对尼日利亚政治格局的影响。梅的实用主义行为是理论基础。这项研究选择了两种来自社交媒体的流行和病毒音乐（尼日利亚皮金）英语演绎。从两个相反的角度对选出的批评穆罕默德·布哈里总统的领导风格的歌曲进行了分析。这两首歌都通过其节奏和歌词表现出了（间接）直接言语行为以及对话和心理行为的语用活动，这些歌词和歌词改编自哈利·宋流行的“雷鬼布鲁斯”，并更名为“（改变/真相）布鲁斯”。音乐政治修辞学依靠通过可验证的信息，（讽刺的）视觉效果，历史，前身以及社会政治现实和情感传达的共文本作为说服策略。所采取的务实行为包括叙述，谴责，指责和反指控，责备，辩护，（部分）遮盖，威胁，希望和祈祷。该研究揭示了一些尼日利亚公民在治理中的政治意识和相互矛盾的看法，并为被治理者之间的“真相认识”提供了理由。因此，提倡公民积极参与和更好地获取有关当今政治领导的信息。所有这些对于重新建立对政府的信任都是非常宝贵的，也可以促使公民积极参与。