Failed Election Manifestoes, Discursive Power and U.S. Military Intervention in Nigeria: A Language-Centered Analysis of Sovereignty, Terror and Political Legitimacy

This article examines the United States’ airstrike in northwestern Nigeria through the combined aperture of political language, unfulfilled electoral manifestoes, and external military intervention. It argues that the air-raid cannot be seen and understood merely as counterterrorism operations but as a discursive event which was produced, justified, and contested through language. Through a cross-fertilization of ideas from international relations theory, critical discourse analysis and political economy, the article explores how electoral promises in Nigeria failed to materialize into effective security governance, thereby creating a linguistic and political vacuum that foreign powers; most notably the United States could fill. The paper further interrogates how President Donald Trump’s rhetoric, religious framing, and power projection intersect with Nigeria’s domestic political fragility, contested sovereignty, and the symbolic collapse of campaign manifestoes into performative texts rather than governing instruments.