A multimodal critical discourse analysis of Nigeria president Bola Tinubu’s fuel subsidy removal policy-related internet memes

This paper examines the Internet memes relating to Nigeria President Bola Tinubu’s fuel subsidy removal policy with a view to uncovering the way Nigerians criticise and digitally resist the perceived anti-people policy. 50 purposively sampled memes, shared within the Nigerian WhatsApp space, were analysed qualitatively using aspects of Kress and van Leeuwen’s multimodal discourse analysis and van Dijk’s critical discourse analysis. The findings reveal that the discourse, design, production and distribution of the semiotic resources enhance the unbundling of the thematic issues in the memes. The study also shows that the memes are employed to negatively represent Tinubu’s government as well as expose the perceived anti-people ideology underlying fuel subsidy removal. The study concludes that the Internet memes are [re]produced to express disapproval of Tinubu’s fuel subsidy removal policy.