Constructing Legitimacy and National Identity: A Critical Discourse Analysis of President Bola Tinubu's Inaugural Speech

Inaugural speeches are pivotal types of political discourse that enable new leaders to assert authority and forge a senseof nationhood. Newly elected leaders seek to unify the polity and legitimise their authority. This study explores howPresident Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s inaugural speech of May 29, 2023 constructs ideologies of power, national identity,unity, and legitimacy discursively via language. Political discourse has drawn diverse scholarly attention fromdifferent perspectives; however, inadequate attention has been paid to how Nigerian presidents concurrently negotiatelegitimacy and unity in their inaugural speeches after contested elections. This study adopts a critical discourseanalysis; the study draws insights from Teun van Dijk’s socio-cognitive approach and Theo van Leeuwen’s theory oflegitimation in the analysis of selected excerpts from the speech. Drawing on the selected frameworks, the analysisinvestigates the cognitive and social dimensions of Tinubu’s language, how shared mental models, ideologies, andrhetorical strategies are employed to strengthen unity and legitimise his presidency. The study identified discursivestrategies such as inclusive pronoun usage, metaphors of collective journey and hope, appeal to shared history andvalues, and explicit affirmations of democratic norms, moral evaluation, authorization, mythopoesis andrationalization. The findings unveil that Tinubu strategically deploys inclusive pronominals, collective memory,democratic ideals, and moral-authoritative appeals to construct a unified national “we” while legitimising hispresidency through legality, morality, and institutional continuity. The study concludes that the speech is premeditatedwith the aim of stabilizing national identity and uniting political legitimacy in a many-sided democratic space likeNigeria. Deductive from these findings, discourse analysts and scholars should deploy a unified socio-cognitive andlegitimation approach when analysing and assessing the impact of rhetoric on public shared cognition. Also, politicalleaders in multi-ethnic democratic systems should employ a balanced view between legal authorisation and inclusivediscourse to build timeless national stability.