“Let’s talk divorce”: a multimodal critical discourse analysis of Oduduwa secessionist discourse

1.1 A brief history of the Oduduwa secessionist social movement

Oduduwa is a secessionist group born out of a long-standing discontent with the political system of the Nigerian federal government and the belief that the Yoruba^[1] people are being marginalized in their own country, Nigeria. The Oduduwa group is a sub-group of the Ilana Omo Oodua, a group that claims to champion the protection and promotion of the Yoruba people, culture, tradition, and language (Osisanwo and Akano 2023). The Oduduwa agitation could be traced to the British amalgamation of the previously independent and ethnically heterogeneous regions (the Southern and Northern Protectorates) of 1914. While the amalgamation was necessary for colonial rule, it generated a series of ethnic upheavals in colonial and postcolonial Nigeria. For example, there were tensions in the eastern part of Nigeria, which led to the creation of a secessionist group called Biafra that was largely made up of the Igbos. This led to a civil war that started in 1967 and ended in 1970 (Chiluwa 2018).

Between 1993 and 1994, there were agitations from the Yoruba when a presidential election was annulled, in which one of the contestants was from the Yoruba ethnic group; the Yoruba contestant, late Chief M. K. O. Abiola, was later imprisoned on accusations of alleged treason and eventually died while in prison. This sparked the formation of the Oòdua People’s Congress (OPC) in August 1994. According to CDCMS (2003), the organization was formed to defend, protect, and promote the interests of the Yoruba people. The Oòdua People’s Congress had resolved to unite the Yoruba people of Delta, Edo, Ekiti, Kogi, Kwara, Lagos, Ogun, Ondo, Osun, and Oyo states into a single federating entity. However, as the organization evolved over the years, a schism developed, involving two different factions. One of the factions opted for an independent Oduduwa Republic, and the Oduduwa secessionist group became active in 2020 owing to the belief that the Yoruba people had been marginalized by northern politicians. The group primarily engages social media (such as Twitter, Facebook, and WhatsApp) and online radio (i.e., Oduduwa Grand Alliance Radio, Oduduwa-Voice Radio Station, Omo Oduduwa Radio, and a host of others) for activism. The Oduduwa secessionist group is currently led by Professor Banji Akintoye, galvanized by Sunday (Igboho) Adeyemo, and supported by Gani Adams as well as several other Yoruba leaders such as Professor Wole Soyinka and Pa Ayo Adebanjo. The majority of the agitators come from the six southwest Nigerian states, as well as Kwara, Kogi, Edo, and Delta, where there is a sizeable number of indigenous Yoruba people.

4.1 Constructing the Oduduwa national identity

The Oduduwa secessionist group, through its images, constructs an Oduduwa national identity through different emblems such as a seal, coat of arms, flag, and anthem that capture the essence of the goals and ideologies of the group, some of which are discussed in Figures 1 and 2.

Figure 1:

Oduduwa seal.

Figure 2:

Map of Oduduwa.

Figure 1 not only indicates a seal that represents the Oduduwa Nation, but it also serves as an indexical reference to the secessionists’ national identity. The seal comprises several verbo-pictorial resources capable of instilling and activating nationalistic sentiments. As expected, semiotic resources that reflect the secessionists’ identity are embedded in the seal. Such resources include two leopards, the Oduduwa flag, the symbol of Oduduwa as a Yoruba deity, an eagle, green vegetation, and the text “ILANA OMO OODUA.” The leopards discursively represent vigor, strength, and agility, which contributes to the typification of the seal as a discourse of militarization (see Nartey 2019a, 2019b). This is especially so since the leopards are symbols of Amotekun, a Yoruba military force in Nigeria (Johnson 2023). Additionally, the use of the eagle contributes to the militarization discourse exemplified in the seal since it represents power and tact. The employment of the eagle and the leopard in the seal has ideological implications capable of instilling pride and faith in the minds of the Oduduwa secessionists. Notably, there is evidence of intertextuality in this image. We argue that the use of the eagle and the green vegetation is interconnected with and influenced by the Nigerian coat of arms. This suggests that even while the secessionists try to redefine, resituate, and negotiate their identity (see Aminu 2024; Aminu and Chiluwa 2023), there is evidence of their Nigerian identity in the discourses produced by them. Like the Biafra secessionists (Chiluwa et al. 2020), this may suggest that the Oduduwa secessionists still lack a strong ideological framework to actualize their goal. Oduduwa, the legendary progenitor of the Yoruba race, symbolizes the ancestral link that binds Yoruba people together. The mythical narrative of the Oduduwa’s arrival and subsequent establishment of kingdoms in Yorubaland serves as a unifying force, fostering a sense of shared history and cultural identity among the Yoruba people. Hence, it is not surprising that the secessionists utilized the image of the deity in their seal. Oduduwa’s presence in the image reinforces the cultural heritage of the Yoruba people. The call for a Yoruba nation, therefore, taps into this historical and cultural heritage, seeking to reassert and preserve the distinct Yoruba identity. The motto “ILANA OMO OODUA” is a direct reference to the organization that advocates for the preservation and advancement of Yoruba people, culture, language, and heritage. Using decategorization and unification strategies, the image producer of Figure 2 constructs the Oduduwa national identity. Specifically, the producer incorporates all the southwestern Yoruba cities as well as a few cities in the South–South (e.g., Benin and Warri) and North-Central (e.g., Ilorin and Lokoja) regions of Nigeria in order to indicate the members of the Oduduwa Nation. Through the design of this map, the producer aims to unify the different cities that make up the Oduduwa secessionist nation, irrespective of their location in Nigeria. This might be because some of the people from within and outside the southwest had denounced being a part of the Oduduwa secessionist movement (Abubakar 2021; Admin 2017). By using a part of the Nigerian map to situate the Oduduwa Nation, the producer invokes entextualization.

4.2 Resisting the Nigerian nation

The Oduduwa secessionist group utilizes images that resist the continuous existence of the Nigerian nation, and this is evident in different images such as those found in Figures 3 and 4.

Figure 3:

Coat of arms.

Figure 4:

Nigeria is a scam.

The discourse design of Figure 3 is the Nigerian coat of arms, which is being attacked by two leopards. The Nigerian coat of arms comprises a black shield with a wavy white pall, which symbolizes the meeting of the Niger and Benue Rivers at Lokoja, and an eagle on the shield. The eagle represents strength, the black shield represents Nigeria’s fertile soil, and the two supporting horses on each side represent dignity (Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2023). The leopard is one of the traditional symbols of the Yoruba. The attack on the horses by the leopards indicates an attack on the Nigerian state. Through the production of this image, the secessionist group resists the existence and unity of the Nigerian state based on their resistance and secessionist ideologies. Figure 3 captures Cammaerts’ (2015) resource mobilization of the social movement theory since it emphasizes the importance of material resources such as symbols that depict the identity and status of the actors in the resistance movement. Thus, the producers of the text showcase materials that signal the plans of the movement to succeed in their pursuit of resistance. Such a text is meant to influence the opinions of the viewers of the image, as the Oduduwa group is projected as a stronger force that will outwit the Nigerian state. The use of the leopards is also meant to influence the opinions of other south–west groups by emphasizing ‘us’ against ‘them’. The expectation is that all political and social structures in the south–west should join forces to ensure that the south–west secedes from Nigeria. An example of such structures is the Western Nigeria Security Network, code-named Amotekun (leopard), which is a security outfit set up by the governors of all south-western states in Nigeria in 2020 to tackle insecurity in the south-west, alongside the police force, which is owned by the Federal government (Adegboruwa 2023). The representation of resisting the Nigerian nation is also exemplified in Figure 4.

The discourse design of Figure 4 is an image macro that contains the map of Nigeria. On the map, the faces of the past Nigerian leaders who fought for independence from colonial rulership are projected. These include Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, who was the first indigenous Prime Minister of Nigeria, and Alhaji Ahmadu Bello, who was the regional head of northern Nigeria, both representing northern Nigeria. The other two are Chief Obafemi Awolowo, who was the first indigenous regional head of western Nigeria, and Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, who was the first indigenous Head of State of Nigeria and represents the eastern part of the country. These are regarded as the founding fathers of Nigeria, and their positioning on the map signals their affiliation with their ethnic or regional origin. Furthermore, the text producer projects them on the map alongside captions such as “Let’s talk divorce” and “Nigeria is a scam,” which are meant to imply that these founding fathers are having a discussion on the separation of the country and depict resistance and secessionist ideologies. The image signals the intention to influence the knowledge and opinions of the viewers about the existence of Nigeria: if the founding fathers are talking about separation, then others should do so too. Here, the text producers rely on historical and political contexts based on shared knowledge of the status of these political leaders. Moreover, the text producers rely on the political process of having discussions on the separation of Nigeria, as shown not only in this figure but in other images where they call for a referendum. The statement “Nigeria is a scam” is meant to foreground the negative representation of Nigeria.

4.3 Membership polarization

Membership polarization is another ideological construct found in the Oduduwa secessionist online images, where the group tries to categorize different regions of the country as belonging to different secessionist groups in Nigeria. This is captured in Figures 5 and 6.

Figure 5:

Polarizing presidential candidates.

Figure 6:

Remixed map of Nigeria.

Kress and van Leeuwen (2010) make a distinction between interactive and represented participants. While the interactive participants are social actors who design, view, or read images, the participants that constitute the subject matter or focus of a design are the represented participants. Hence, Peter Obi, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, and Atiku Abubakar respectively are the represented participants in Figure 5. It is the case, however, that Bola Ahmed Tinubu implicitly represents the Oduduwa secessionists as the interactive participants, as illustrated in the image. In Figure 5, the image producer does not only make an explicit ethno-membership categorization of the three candidates that ran for the presidential office in Nigeria in 2023 but also associates the ethnic identities of these candidates with the secessionist group organized by these ethnic identities. In essence, while the producer associates Peter Obi, the first represented participant, with the Igbo ethnic group, which in turn is attributed to organizing the Biafra secessionist group (see Chiluwa et al. 2020 for more information on the Biafrans); they associate Atiku Abubakar, the last represented participant, with the Hausa/Fulani ethnic group in charge of Arewa secessionism. Membership categorization strategies such as these fuel polarization and reinforce in-group and out-group ideological boundaries. While these ideological boundaries characterize Oduduwa secessionists as an epistemic community, this categorization mechanism, through cultural assessment and strategies of cohesivation and unification, underscores the complex ethno-cultural othering among Nigerians. The Oduduwa secessionists achieve this discursive othering via this strategy as well as highlight the criteria for their social membership – ethnic identity. This categorization work and relational pairing provide a means of understanding the normative situational constituent of group membership for the secessionists (Housley and Fitzgerald 2009; Latimer 2004). In fact, the association of Bola Ahmed Tinubu with Oduduwa secessionists in this image implies that their choice of Nigeria’s president is largely based on ethnic sentiment. Hence, because Tinubu is Yoruba, they support his presidential aspiration. Ironically, the text “REPUBLIC OF AREWA” is placed on Nigeria’s flag rather than the Arewa secessionists’ flag. This lends credence to the argument of Aminu and Chiluwa (2023) that the Oduduwa secessionists believe that Nigeria is a country that essentially favors the Northerners. Figure 6 also confirms membership polarization in the online images.

The sense of membership categorization and polarization is also evident in Figure 6, where the remixed image of the map of Nigeria is segmented based on the ethnicity of the regions. Interestingly, again, the image producer places an image of Nigeria’s secessionist groups’ flags on the regions for which these groups demand freedom. For instance, while the Arewa region colored red is housed by the Northerners, the Oduduwa region colored purple is linked to the Western region, and the Biafra region colored yellow is the eastern part. In the map, however, the producer misplaces the map of the Savannah (popularly referred to as the Niger Delta) group, as the Niger Delta group is originally housed between Oduduwa and Biafra in Nigeria’s southern region (Adetayo 2021). This polarization strategy orients social actors about their cultural identity. Additionally, this technique goes beyond just a semantic macro-strategy of cultural identification to legitimize the Oduduwa secessionists’ resistance as a social movement. In essence, by typifying the regions, the Oduduwa group shows that every region has a cultural identity, and, as such, they call for the independence of these regions where the decisions made by one region do not affect another. In this way, the Oduduwa group’s polarization strategy is also a legitimation strategy – an argumentative technique that the secessionists’ employ to justify their resistance or demand for secession.

4.4 Accentuating violence in Nigeria

Another discursive strategy is the emphasis on ethnic violence as a reason for secession from Nigeria. This emphasizes the negative Other presentation of terrorist groups in Nigeria, as exemplified in Figures 7 and 8.

Figure 7:

Declaring Yoruba nation.

Figure 8:

Referendum.

The discourse design in Figure 7 embeds multiple semiotic modes. In the design, we see foregrounded texts that read “DECLARE YORUBA NATION NOW!” and “FULANI TERRORISTS HAVE HIJACKED NIGERIAN GOVT,” as well as two images with cryptic contexts. The first textual caption encodes a directive speech act, demanding social actors announce and bring to existence the Yoruba nation by any means. While the use of the performative verb ‘declare’ denotes force and resistance, the use of the stylo-orthographic exclamation mark connotes an emotional and ideological commitment to the performativity of the assertion. The general sentiment of an exclamation mark is anger and frustration. The secessionists further legitimize their demand for the declaration of Yoruba nation by asserting that “FULANI TERRORISTS HAVE HIJACKED NIGERIAN GOVT.” These captions connote not only resistance but also accentuate violence. In the background of the design, there are two real-life images: the first is a picture of a male participant lying dead on the floor with stains of blood around him, and the second is former President Muhammadu Buhari and a photo-shopped palmprint of blood on his dress. Drawing mainly on intertextuality, the secessionists employ victimization by adding the picture of a social actor shot during a social unrest in Nigeria. In order to legitimize the secessionists’ ideology, the image producer adds that “His only crime was being born in Nigeria,” as though being Nigerian is a lethal punishment or an arbitration. In the two pictures placed in the image, there is evidently a depiction of blood. The employment of blood in this context illustrates bloodshed as a result of violence, which intensifies the victimhood-cum-suffering status of the secessionists, perhaps in an exaggerated way. The deployment of exaggerated victimhood in this instance is to draw sympathy from the audience. Hence, the use of blood on social actors in these pictures can be analyzed as a strategic choice by the secessionists to negotiate meaning at the intersection of social actors, culture, societal issues, and multimodality. This strategic choice is also evident in Figure 8.

In Figure 8, the secessionists intentionally employ the red color, metaphorically representing blood, to manifest suffering, violence, and victimhood, which is instructive given its socio-cultural context. While the use of red is socio-culturally subjective, in Nigeria, red represents bloodshed, death, and danger. Thus, the image designer uses the red color to denote that violence takes place regularly in Nigeria. Importantly, the design exploits hyperbole for socio-ideological purposes. For instance, stating that there are “Daily Rivers of Blood in Nigeria” is an exaggeration. Indeed, there were numerous situations where the Yoruba people (as well as other ethnic groups) in Nigeria were viciously attacked by bandits and other terrorist groups in Nigeria (Adetayo 2021; Agboluaje 2021). These incessant terrorist attacks on the Yoruba people motivate the secessionists’ demand for a ‘Referendum.’ Therefore, the use of red and blood in these images (Figures 7 and 8) strengthens the force of the message communicated, accentuates violence, negatively frames Nigeria, and functions not only as a strategic means of resisting the prevailing situation but also as a way of enlisting support for their goal. In this sense, these rhetorical-discursive strategies typify the secessionists’ discourse as a radicalist discourse (Chiluwa and Ifukor 2015).

4.5 Calling for the Yoruba nation

The Oduduwa secessionist group emphasizes the preservation and promotion of Yoruba arts, language, religion, and customs. By creating a Yoruba nation, the secessionists believe they can safeguard their unique cultural heritage and pass it down to future generations, as depicted in Figures 9 and 10.

Figure 9:

YOREXIT.

Figure 10:

Fight for freedom.

The discourse design in Figure 9 is made up of verbal and visual resources. The verbal resources read, “YOREXIT Yoruba leaving Nigeria to their country, ODUDUWA REPUBLIC.” The coinage and stylo-orthographic foregrounding via capitalization of ‘YOREXIT’ (i.e., ‘Yoruba exit’), similar to Brexit (British Exit), indicates intertextuality and a representation of the shared knowledge of the secessionists and a discursive representation of the goal of the organized group. Significantly, the Biafra secessionist group also utilizes a similar coinage, Biafrexit (Azubuike 2018). Similarly, with the intention of bringing to the fore the theme of the group’s movement, the image producer tactically capitalizes ‘ODUDUWA REPUBLIC’ as the goal of the social actors. The deployed visual representation in Figure 9 includes the Oduduwa flag, a family in an airport, and a group of Yoruba people celebrating. These semiotic objects are discursively employed as a resource mobilization strategy to project the shared value of the group. The family, represented by a naturalistic but blurred schematic reduction, in the airport is seen to be exiting a location, metaphorically Nigeria, with their belongings. This is a discursive representation of the Oduduwa secessionists and social actors who share in their leaving Nigeria. The social actors celebrating in the image are the secessionists presumed to have already exited Nigeria and are rejoicing at the accomplishment of their goal. The ideological effect of this is that the Oduduwa Republic is given an appealing depiction, making arrival at this destination non-negotiable. It also implicitly represents the Oduduwa nation as a destination capable of instilling happiness in its inhabitants, as opposed to Nigeria. This discursive qualification, therefore, involves a comparison strategy that frames Oduduwa as a good country and Nigeria as a bad one. This is usually done to emphasize and intensify the expected level of the ascribed qualification (Aminu 2024). Their celebration could potentially arouse optimistic sentiments and give their supporters a reason to look into the secession with hope, anticipation, and confidence. The attire worn by the happy social actors is a Yoruba dress, which serves as an indexical marker of Yoruba cultural identity. The choice of Yoruba attire for the represented participants is predictably employed since social actors choose and use semiotic resources that they believe will be as transparent as possible to other social actors to necessitate communication as understandable as possible in a given social context (Kress and van Leeuwen 2010). Expectedly, these discursive strategies situate the secessionists as a social movement with an out-group (i.e., Nigeria), a collective identity, and a shared goal (Cammaerts 2015), as seen also in Figure 10.

The utilization of a folded wrist in Figure 10 projects a deontic modality that strengthens the force of the group’s demands, forming a tough stance indicative of resolution and resistance (Fairclough 2010). This implies that the secessionists resolutely demand Yoruba Nation, and it underscores the agentive discursive positioning of the group. To reinforce this agentive posture, the image producer employs the use of a symbolic and motivational caption: “FIGHT FOR FREEDOM.” It is possible to study the lexico-syntactic choices made in this context as a technique of evoking patriotism and nationalistic sentiment, thereby evoking an emotional reaction based on purported shared values. The employment of this rhetorical resource might be seen as a means of compelling the oppressed Yoruba people to rise in (armed) resistance against those who have treated them unjustly. The image, therefore, promotes the discourse of resistance, gives an indication of the radical approach to be adopted in their “fight for freedom,” and forms part of their legitimization strategy in support of resistance. In the image, the southwestern states of the Yoruba people are backgrounded: “Oyo, Osun, Lagos, Kwara, Ondo, Kogi, and Ekiti.” By making reference to the Yoruba states in Nigeria, the secessionists accentuate their cultural identity and identify states that constitute the Yoruba nation. Interestingly, there is an observable use of intentionally selected colors in their call for Yoruba nation in Figure 10: green, red, and black. Therefore, not only do the secessionists show a resolute demand for a new Yoruba nation, but they also typify their nation via color as an available, contextually relevant semiotic resource. The use of green in this image metaphorically symbolizes the growth of agriculture and natural resources in the Yoruba land; red represents the vitality and fight for self-determination and willingness to defend the Yoruba people’s rights and interests, and black appears to be connected to the black race to which the Yoruba people belong. These colors tactically represent the Yoruba Nation as a group capable of independence, revolution, and sovereignty.

4.6 Delegitimization of the Nigerian nation

Some of the online images of the Oduduwa social movement deal with the delegitimization of the Nigerian nation based on claims of a faulty Nigerian constitution, as depicted in Figures 11 and 12.

Figure 11:

“Nigeria is a fraud”.

Figure 12:

Toxic constitution.

In Figures 11 and 12, the secessionists employ three lingua-semiotic resources to delegitimize Nigeria: symbolization, lexicalization, and hashtags. Delegitimization via symbolization is achieved by placing a ban on the 1999 Nigerian constitution. The secessionists also delegitimize Nigeria via lexicalization strategy, such as ‘fraud,’ ‘fraudulent,’ ‘killings,’ ‘poverty,’ ‘oppression,’ ‘lies,’ ‘nepotism,’ ‘corruption,’ ‘borrowing,’ ‘kidnapping,’ ‘land grabbing,’ and ‘toxic.’ This lexicalization reinvigorates resistance as well as discredits Nigeria as a country worthy of inhabitation and citizenship. By discrediting the constitution, the secessionists signal a negative, unethical, and immoral justification for its existence. The lexicalization also explicates the negative affect the secessionists have on Nigeria and explicitly polarizes the country as an out-group. Additionally, delegitimization is achieved via hashtags, such as ‘#EndGenocideInNigeriaNow,’ ‘#StopImportationOfISISTerroristtoNigeria,’ ‘StopAttackOnPressFreedomNow,’ and ‘#MiyettiAllahIsADangerToDemocracy.’ These hashtags convey some of the secessionists’ arguments and beliefs, and they can also be seen as a form of (1) ideological alignment, (2) framing and agenda-setting, and (3) contestation and counter-narratives. Essentially, in order to apply the delegitimization of Nigeria, the secessionists ask a rhetorical question: “So! Why Go Ahead With ELECTION 2023?” It is important to note, however, that by delegitimizing Nigeria via these lingua-semiotic resources, the secessionists do not only implicitly legitimize and justify their resistant demand for a new country but also booster their discursive positioning as heroes and Messiahs. According to Geis (1987), resistant groups can emerge as heroes in dire situations, particularly when a social group feels threatened or unfairly treated by a constituted authority or established system. This discursive positioning can be seen as a tactic to offer social actors a solution to distressing situations. It also heightens the force of the secessionists’ resistance rhetoric and serves as a demotivator for social actors who still believe in Nigeria. Hence, this strategy can potentially motivate the secessionists to do more resistance work and garner more followers from the audience.

4.7 Constructing betrayal of the Yoruba nation

Some of the online images of the Oduduwa secessionist group show the construction of the betrayal of the Yoruba nation by some Yoruba social actors, as depicted in Figures 13 and 14.

Figure 13:

Inglorious men.

Figure 14:

Brainwashed by Fulani.

The represented participants in Figure 13 are political leaders in Nigeria who are Yoruba. By being part of Nigeria’s political leadership, the secessionists attribute out-group membership to them. This is explicated in the lexicalization strategies employed in Figure 13, such as ‘inglorious’ and ‘selfish,’ used to negatively evaluate and nominate the Yoruba leaders. These negative labels construct the leaders as betrayers and enemies of the Oduduwa nation, as well as reinforce an immediate ‘us’ versus ‘them’ polarity. According to Lazar and Lazar (2004), an out-group member is someone who violates ‘our’ ideals, and the instantiation of this out-group member is crucial in defining, establishing, and upholding moral order because it serves as an othering mechanism that simplifies complicated socio-cultural phenomena into a simple ‘us’ versus ‘them’ binary opposition. By defining the Yoruba leaders as betrayers and out-group members, any Yoruba who occupies any political office in Nigeria is considered an out-group by virtue of being a member of the Nigerian government. Additionally, by excluding the Yoruba leaders from the Yoruba community, the secessionists invoke fractal recursivity (Gal and Irvin 2019). As a consequence of the leaders’ betrayal, the producer adds that “they will soon taste the power of the people,” implying that they would be punished by the Yoruba people. This fosters the discourse of resistance in the secessionists’ discourse.

The foregrounded, represented actor in Figure 14 is Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, a former Nigerian President who led from 1999 to 2007. He is from southwest Nigeria and is a Yoruba man. In the verbo-pictorial design, the rhetorical-discursive technique switches from a macro-construction of Yoruba politicians as enemies to a micro-construction of Olusegun Obasanjo as an enemy of the secessionists. By employing the name-and-shame mechanism, the secessionists hold Obasanjo accountable for betraying the Yoruba people. This naming tactic is employed to expose the undesired characteristics of well-known social actors (Koliev 2018). However, although this strategy is accompanied by discursive evidentiality, there is no substantial information in the design that proves the negative attribution. Rather, by stating that Obasanjo “was fathered by Igbo,” which appears to be inconsistent with media reports and scholarly sources (see Akinfenwa 2023; Sahara Reporters 2007), the secessionists deploy character attack as a weapon to construct him as a betrayer. This tactic characterizes the design as accusatory discourse (Castor 2015). Notably, by assuming the right to determine who speaks for the Yoruba people and how this assumption is accompanied by an authoritative and epistemic stance, it is evident that the secessionists assume a strong force among the Yoruba people in Nigeria. We suspect that the accusation and negative evaluation leveled at Obasanjo by the secessionists are due to the nationalistic ideology he projected during his tenure (Campbell 2021). Interestingly, the image producer of Figure 14, with the intent to project the significant Other, places the pictures of former President Muhammadu Buhari and Alhaji Abubakar Sa’ad, two significant Northern leaders, side-by-side with Obasanjo as though to imply that they belong to the same group. This is done in order to metaphorically categorize Obasanjo with the people the secessionists fight against. Essentially, it can be inferred that not only do political leaders who are Yoruba constitute the secessionists’ Other, but Yoruba people that believe in nationalism and a united Nigeria are also polarized and expelled as potential citizens of the Oduduwa group. The assertion “he sold Yoruba to the Fulani” is wholly characterized by hyperbole. The assertion connotes the fact that Obasanjo, at the end of his tenure as president in 2007, handed over the presidential office to Umaru Musa Yar’Adua (a Fulani man), who legitimately won the election. The implication of this assertion, therefore, is that the secessionists believe that Obasanjo should have handed over to a Yoruba, who presumably did not win. Thus, for the secessionists, in order to be recognized as an Oduduwa Republic citizen, such a person must not only be Yoruba but also believe in and exhibit an exclusionist ideology, demanding or supporting the creation and existence of the Yoruba nation.