Constructing the China Threat Narrative in Nigerian Security Discourse: A Critical Discourse Analysis

A China threat narrative has circulated in Nigerian security and political discourse, invoking concerns about sovereignty compromise, economic dependence, and surveillance technology deployment. This study provides a theoretically grounded critical discourse analysis of the construction, circulation, and contestation of China threat narratives in Nigerian public life. The study draws on Laclau and Mouffe's discourse theory, Buzan's securitisation framework, and Fairclough's critical discourse analysis methodology. A comprehensive multimodal corpus was assembled, comprising 180 newspaper editorials, 60 parliamentary speeches, 40 civil society reports, and 30 social media discourse samples from across all six geopolitical zones, spanning 2015 to 2023. Discourse analysis was complemented by 25 interviews with securitisation actors including journalists, civil society leaders, opposition politicians, and security analysts who have publicly articulated China threat perspectives. Results reveal three distinct threat narrative traditions in Nigerian discourse: a sovereignty-economic nationalist strand focused on debt and natural resource control, a labour-economic strand focused on employment competition and worker abuse, and an emerging surveillance-authoritarian strand linked to Chinese CCTV and communications infrastructure. The study traces how these narratives are selectively amplified by different political actors and how Chinese diplomatic counter-narratives attempt to deconstruct them. Original theoretical contributions include a Peripheral State Securitisation Model that captures the distinctive security discourse dynamics of states that are simultaneously recipients of Chinese development assistance and hosts of a growing Chinese economic presence.

Keywords: China threat narrative, critical discourse analysis, Nigerian security discourse, securitisation, geopolitical zones