UNE ETUDE ANALYTIQUE DE ‘EMILOKAN’ DANS LE DISCOURS POLITIQUE DU NIGERIA

Abstract

The expression EMILOKAN was uttered by Bola Ahmed Tinubu (BAT) in one of the political meetings of his All Progressive Congress (APC) party in 2022. The expression generally means – it is my time or my turn to do or receive something after waiting for a while. It is also, from another perspective, my turn to lead the country or the power is mine at that moment. In BAT's situation, he used this expression to make a declaration that he will be the next president of Nigeria in 2023. He is known for his nationalist ideology and political skills. He is not shy in creating new words as he has been associated with the words like JAGABAN, EKO FOR SHOW and so on. In this paper, the researchers were able to evoke Bakhtin's theory which lays emphasis on the dialogical state of Man as the problem of this study aims to search for attractive Yoruba words and expressions to convince Nigerian youths to rally round the most influential candidate. This study foregrounds how language and politics intertwine in Nigerian society to persuade the public or attract their interest towards a particular political party to succeed during the general election. Nigeria is a democratic country which gives citizens the opportunity to choose their leader for each mandate which lasts a period of four years. This action leads to a competition between power-seeking politicians like BAT and its rivals.  This research brought up other vocabularies associated with other political gladiators like ATIKULATE – the personality of Atiku Abubakar and OBIDIENT – Peter Obi, former governor of Anambra state. Our recommendations consist of familiarising Yoruba speakers with the French equivalence of expressions emanating from the Yoruba language and simplify them for the non-native speakers.