Critical Discourse Analysis of Yoruba Political Editorials During the 2023 Presidential Election

Political editorials in Yoruba-language media during the 2023 Nigerian presidential election represent a critical site for examining how language constructs political reality, allocates blame, and mobilises ethnic and regional identity. This study applies critical discourse analysis to Yoruba political editorials published in selected South West Nigerian newspapers during the three months preceding the February 2023 presidential election. A corpus of 60 editorials drawn from Alaroye, Tribune Yoruba, and Isokan Yoruba publications was constructed and subjected to discourse historical analysis and van Dijk's socio-cognitive discourse model. The study examines how Yoruba editorial discourse frames presidential candidates, constructs political legitimacy, and deploys Yoruba cultural and historical references to make political arguments. Existing critical discourse analysis of Nigerian elections has overwhelmingly focused on English-medium national newspapers, leaving Yoruba-language political discourse severely underrepresented in the academic literature. This study fills that significant analytical gap. The research investigates whether Yoruba editorials reproduce pan-ethnic Yoruba solidarity frames or whether intra-Yoruba political differences are critically examined, and how the figure of the Yoruba electorate is discursively constructed in editorial texts. Findings are expected to reveal a dominant solidarity frame reinforced by historical references to Yoruba marginalisation, with limited critical examination of candidate policy positions. Recommendations will address media literacy education for Yoruba political discourse consumers and the need for independent critical voice in Yoruba language political journalism. Keywords: critical discourse analysis, Yoruba editorials, 2023 elections, political discourse, language and power.