The #PantamiMustGo political activism: A textual analysis of narrative agency in protest discourse

Abstract

This study analyses the narrative structure of the #PantamiMustGo hashtag activism in Nigeria. Applying qualitative textual analysis, the study examines the issues that were made salient in the protests and how they were constructed. Through the analysis of narrative agency, the study finds that activists constructed Ali Pantami as a threat to national security and called for his resignation. Two discourse structures were salient in the discursive construction of Ali Pantami and the Buhari government, namely the use of comparison to link the past with the present and the use of labelling as means of constructing social and political insecurity in Nigeria. This study contributes to stressing the role of social media in political activism through narrative agency analysis in the process of negotiating change by people who feel threatened by the apparatus of the state.