What is it about?
This study analyses news reports of public reactions to the controversial legislators’ monthly/annual income in Nigeria in 2019, which was presumed to far exceed the salaries of legislators worldwide. Data for this study are news and opinion articles published between 2017 and 2019 that represent a public response to the salary scandal involving public officers and National Assembly members. Critical discourse analysis is adopted in the analyses of media representations of the main actors in and situations of the scandal. Hence, discursive strategies identified in the resistance discourse of the news media are qualitatively analyzed. The study argues that lack of accountability and widespread corruption in the Nigerian political economy is a reflection of weak political institutions, such as those that empower legislators to enrich themselves.
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Why is it important?
The very high salaries for legislators in Nigeria - in fact, the highest in the world are exploitative. The study calls on the world to condemn corruption in its various forms.
Perspectives
The salary of a Nigerian legislator is 50 times more than Nigeria's GDP per capita. This study condemns the arbitrary and unlawful salary structure for legislators and views it as a violation of the legal constitutional provision, which amounts to institutional corruption.
Dr Innocent CHILUWA
Covenant University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Resisting corruption in the Nigerian legislature: A critical discourse analysis of news and opinion articles on legislators’ salaries, Discourse & Communication, September 2021, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1177/17504813211017710.
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