A Systematic Analysis of Ciceronian Rhetorical Strategies in Contemporary Nigerian Political Speeches (2015-2023)

Ciceronian rhetoric, encompassing the five canons of rhetorical invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery, remains the most fully articulated classical system for analysing persuasive public discourse. This study conducts a systematic empirical analysis of Ciceronian rhetorical strategies in contemporary Nigerian political speeches from 2015 to 2023, filling a gap in the application of classical rhetorical analysis to African political communication. A corpus linguistic and rhetorical analysis methodology was adopted, assembling a corpus of sixty significant political speeches by Nigerian presidents, governors, and senators across all six geopolitical zones, drawn from the period 2015 to 2023. The corpus was coded using a modified Ciceronian rhetorical analysis instrument assessing inventio (argument construction), dispositio (structural organisation), elocutio (stylistic devices), and appeals (ethos, pathos, logos). Inter-rater reliability was established at 0.87 (Krippendorff's alpha). Statistical analysis compared rhetorical profile differences across political parties, geopolitical zones, and gender of speaker. Results confirm that ethos appeals are significantly more prevalent (p<0.01) in northern Nigerian political speeches than in southern Nigerian equivalents, possibly reflecting the premium placed on personal moral authority in Islamic political culture. The study fills an identified empirical gap in the classical rhetoric and African politics literature and provides a validated coding instrument for future comparative studies. Keywords: Ciceronian rhetoric, Nigerian political speeches, corpus analysis, rhetorical strategies, empirical analysis