Statistics show that Nigeria has 10.5 million out-of-school children (OOSC), the highest figure in the globe. This study investigated the media frames and framing strategies of OOSC in Punch, Vanguard, and Daily Trust Newspapers. Using qualitative content analysis, the study adopted van Dijk’s Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) alongside the thematic and episodic positions of Framing Theory. Analysis showed five media frames and six framing strategies for OOSC. For media frames, OOSC were represented as vulnerable and poor victims; silenced voices; children sprouting from state and policy failure; children sprouting from non-state actors’ failure, as well as children in crisis and need of collaborative responses. For framing strategies, we found source avoidance as a means of masking negativity, authoritativeness as a framing strategy, positive self-presentation, and negative other-presentation, apportioning blame, and foregrounding, alongside direct and implied metaphors. Journalists used these representations to frame opinions and influence people’s perceptions of the OOSC menace. The study recommends that media houses always explore ways of actualizing the truth efficacy of news reportage, and write stories about OOSC more thematically.

Beyond the political communication context, non-verbal communication cues are so potent that their interpretations may outweigh the intentionality of the interlocutors that produce the cues. This study analyses the communicative and rhetorical strategies in seven purposively selected political memes created by Nigerians before Nigeria’s ruling party, the All Progressives Congress (APC) held her presidential primary election ahead of the country’s 2023 Presidential Election. The study focused on how the memes marketed and de-marketed the candidacies of Nigeria’s Vice-President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo (the star boy), and Former Lagos State Governor, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu (the city boy). Driven by the set-up-incongruity resolution theory of humour, rhetorical framing and socio-semiotic model for visual analysis, the study identified two general themes and five sub-themes from the memes. In the first theme— collective framing of political actors—, Tinubu and Osinbajo were framed as combating competitors. For the second general theme— individuated framing of political gladiators—, sub-themes such as Osinbajo as a kind politician, Tinubu as a kingmaker, Tinubu as a thug and Osinbajo as a betrayer dominated. The study recommends that to establish a better democratic atmosphere in Nigeria, political stakeholders should emphasise accurate civic education on the Nigerian public space and stress pertinent campaign issues instead of irrelevancies.

The study investigates how coinages and slogans are political conduits used strategically by individuals in constructing their identities in the 2019 general election political discourse in Nigeria. The study adopted Norman Fairclough and Ruth Wodak‘s Discourse-Historical analysis model of CDA, together with Clusivity theory and Halliday’s Systemic Functional Linguistics.  Twenty four comments involving coinages and slogans that cut across popular subject areas of politics relating to the Nigerian 2019 general election between 2018 and 2019 are purposively sampled. Data for the study were retrieved from the Nairaland forum archives. The comments were sampled, scrutinized and analysed using the content analysis method. The use of coinages and slogans can be implicit or explicit. It was revealed that when constructing identity, political actors can employ coinages and slogans to reflect the notion of “positive self-representation” and “negative other-representation” established in Wieczorek’s strategies of Inclusion and Exclusion in Clusivity theory. Coinages and slogans are also used for different discursive strategies such as persuasion, negotiation, sarcasm and rhetorical questions. Political actors used coinages and slogans as political conduits to delineate and negotiate their political affiliations and dissociations and also to achieve, advocate, alter and (re)build their political ideologies and leanings in the 2019 general election in Nigeria.

The advent of technology has brought a change in the dynamics of second language teaching and learning. WhatsApp has been a common tool used among students for communicating and chatting with friends, peers, and relatives. Its commonality may be because of its easy installation as mobile application on mobile devices. Educators are beginning to explore its potentials toward seeing how it can help students in their learning. Since it is apparently a novel tool in the education sector, its usefulness in acquiring vocabulary by secondary school students is yet to be ascertained. Therefore, this study examined the impact of WhatsApp on vocabulary acquisition of secondary school students in Ogbomoso, Oyo State, Nigeria. This study was premised on the constructivist learning theory since WhatsApp provides students the opportunity to construct their vocabulary knowledge.  The sample for the study comprised 250 students from five secondary schools randomly selected in Ogbomoso, Oyo State. Data for the study were generated from the participants using self-made questionnaire. The questionnaire is structured into 5 points from Strongly Agree to Strongly Disagree. Mean and standard deviation were employed to analyse the data. Findings showed that more than half of the students believe WhatsApp is expedient in learning and acquiring vocabulary. It further revealed that the majority of the students perceive WhatsApp as an effective social network that enhances their vocabulary acquisition as it is easy to acquire new words and understand their meanings through WhatsApp. The study concluded that language teachers should devise means of adopting social media such as WhatsApp to teach their students since students are favourably disposed to learning through WhatsApp.