Decoding Political Metaphors: A Conceptual Study of Hidden Significance in the Accidental Public Servant by Nasiru Ahmad El-Rufai and my Transition Hours by Goodluck Ebele Jonathan

Abstract

The late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries have witnessed significant scholarly interest in metaphors from a cognitive perspective. This transcends to studying metaphor in political discourse, including memoirs, as a means of uncovering hidden meanings that politicians may deliberately conceal in their writings. As such, the paper examines conceptual metaphor in political discourse, with particular emphasis on the memoirs “My Transition Hours” by Goodluck Ebele Jonathan and “The Accidental Public Servant” by Nasiru Ahmed El-Rufai. Using a qualitative research approach, the metaphors are purposively selected and scrutinized. However, the Metaphor Identification Procedure of Pragglejaz (2007) is adopted to explore the metaphoric terms across various expressions in which they appear. In its theoretical framework, the paper employs the Conceptual Metaphor Theory (hence CMT) developed by Lakoff and Johnson (1980). The findings suggest that politicians who are also writers explain political terminology such as politics, nation, power, governance, and refugees as target domains using a variety of human experiences like war, building, dressing, marketing, and liquid as source domains. The study highlights the close connection between metaphor and political discourse, underscoring the significance of comprehending metaphor used in political discourse.