Pragma-discursive and rhetorical strategies in judiciary-themed Internet memes relating to Nigeria’s 2023 general elections

Abstract This paper undertakes a pragma-discursive and rhetorical analysis of 60 purposively sampled judiciary-themed Internet memes relating to Nigeria’s 2023 general elections with a view to exploring the way Nigeria’s judiciary and judicial processes are represented. The memes, which were gathered from Nigerian WhatsApp platforms, were analysed qualitatively leveraging Barthes’ connotation and van Dijk’s critical discourse analysis. The analysis reveals that the memes are largely employed to expose the manipulable tendencies, financial corruption and partisan disposition of Nigeria’s judiciary. The study concludes that the memes are circulated to instantiate a negative representation of Nigeria’s justice sector, and resist the perceived anti-democratic ideology of this arm of government.