Discursive and ideological dimensions of fake news in Nigeria’s 2023 general election discourse

Marked by intensified youth-led mobilization and digital activism, the Nigerian 2023 general election was shaped not only by partisan rivalry but also by a surge in disinformation. This study investigates the ideological and pragmatic strategies underpinning fake news during this electoral period. The analysis followed a qualitative analysis of 37 fact-checked fake news items from Agence France-Presse (AFP) Fact Check, using Wodak’s integrated framework of “Pragmatics and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA),” complemented by Kress and van Leeuwen’s visual-semiotic framework. Findings reveal ten recurring themes clustering around leadership health, institutional distrust, global validation, political hero/villain binaries, competence attacks, elite endorsement, electoral violence, gender representation, civic mobilization, and ethnic separatism. Across these themes, disinformation systematically deploys presupposition, implicature, fabricated authorization, identity misattribution, historical reference, and visual manipulation to naturalize ideological positions and advance partisan narratives. These narratives reproduce ideological formations such as neocolonialism, ableism, personalist politics, progressive neoliberalism, and separatist ideology. These findings position fake news as an ideological warfare that exploits Nigeria’s deep-seated ethnic and political divisions to erode institutional trust, heighten polarization, and distort democratic engagement.