"GOD, OUR SECURITY!": AN INTERTEXTUAL ANALYSIS OF INSECURITY DISCOURSE ON SELECTED WHATSAPP GROUP-MESSAGES

Abstract

This study investigates intertextual configurations of insecurity discourse by selected WhatsApp group members on WhatsApp platforms in order to explore and explicate the sources group members rely on for the construal of insecurity texts. The study adopted a participantobservation and media-monitoring method of data collection. Data were retrieved from selected WhatsApp group platforms from January to June 2022. Thirty-six (36) research respondents, drawn across the three federal senatorial districts in Lagos, was duly informed, and consent granted. From the data collected, only twelve (12) security-related discourses were purposively selected for analysis. The study is undergirded by Fairclough’s theoretical postulation on Critical Discourse Analysis, with a focus on intertextuality. Findings reveal that, through manifest intertextuality, group members inter-mixed insecurity discourse with political, historical and religious discourses. The study also reveals that group members’ intertextual invocations are marked with scare tactics and self-distancing strategies. The scare tactics foregrounds doom saying while the self-distancing strategy enacts self as whistleblowers. Self-protectionism is discursively exemplified through the concealment of self-identity and denial of self-involvement. The call for personal and collective prayers instantiates the religionization of insecurity events in Nigeria. Since there are fears for personal safety and public security in Nigeria, the study concludes that God is ‘our’ security.