CONDUIT CORRUPTION: A MULTIMODAL CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF SLEAZE IN NIGERIAN SOCIO-POLITICAL SYSTEM

Abstract

Corruption has become endemic among many nations of the world, Nigeria inclusive. She, more than any other country in Africa, has suffered under the crippling influence of corruption despite her much-touted position as “the giant of Africaâ€. To this end, several responses to this ugly scenario have emerged ranging from the literary to the visual. This study is a modest attempt to investigate the conceptual representation of sleaze in the political cartoons of Mike Asukwo and the multimodal resources deployed in creating such cartoons. The population of the study is 50 cartoons from Asukwo’s BusinessDay on-line publications between 2015- 2018. The study provides a qualitative analysis of five cartoons on the themes of conduit corruption. They are purposively sampled to ensure they align with the theme of the study. The study adopts Kress van Leeuwen’s (2006) Social Semiotics and Kress and van Leeuwen (2001) Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis frameworks for its analysis. The findings show that through Asukwo’s form of signification that corruption has eaten deeply into the fabrics of the nation. It further proved the analytical framework adequate for the interpretation of images thereby making the cartoon genre a formidable force in the fight against corruption as Asukwo sarcastically shows.