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Abstract

This paper examines the forms and functions of Internet memes relating to the fuel subsidy removal policy of Nigeria´s President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, with a view to identifying the conceptual metaphors that underlie the creation of the memes. The data, which consist of fifty memes shared in the Nigerian WhatsApp space, are analysed qualitatively using aspects of Kress and van Leeuwen´s (2001) multimodal discourse analysis and Forceville´s (2015) multimodal metaphor theory. The findings reveal that the discourse, design and production of the multimodal resources enhance the conceptualization of the metaphorical representations in the memes. The study also shows the prevalence of the metaphors: fuel subsidy removal is a fraud, fuel subsidy removal is poverty and fuel subsidy removal is inequality among other conceptual metaphors to explain the people´s negative disposition towards the fuel subsidy removal policy. The study concludes that the forms and functions of the subsidy removal-related memes assist in revealing the multimodal conceptual metaphors underlying the memes.