“Hidden in Plain Sight: Image, Text, and Social Commentary in Victor Ekpuk's Cartoons for The Daily Times of Nigeria, 1989-1998” By Kaleb William Jewell, B.A. A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts at Virginia Commonwealth University. Virginia Commonwealth University, 2016. Major Director: Dr. Babatunde Lawal, Professor in the Department of Art History This thesis provides an analysis of the cartoons produced by Victor Ekpuk for The Daily Times newspaper of Nigeria from 1989 through 1998 and the artist’s use of ancient nsibidi script to “hide in plain sight” his social commentaries on sociopolitical and economic issues in Nigeria. Victor Ekpuk’s original cartoons within the permanent collection of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African Art are examined in the context of indigenous masking practices and other indirect methods employed by indigenous comedians to protect themselves. Moreover, the cartoons’ use of caricature and their nsibidi scripts within are argued to provide a connotative and denotative dichotomy which allowed the artist to work more freely during a period of oppression.

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Hidden in Plain Sight: Image, Text, and Social Commentary in Victor Ekpuk's Cartoons for The Daily Times of Nigeria, 1989-1998

This paper analyses different patterns of verbal and nonverbal meaning-making strategies in a variety of political campaign cartoons produced during the March 2015 general elections in Nigeria. The data for the study comprises six campaign cartoons selected from the Nairaland online community, an Internet forum created by Nigerian Internet entrepreneur Oluwaseun Temitope Osewa in 2005. Furthermore, it takes into account the cartoons’ linguistic and extralinguistic components while developing a context within which to define their pragmatic potential. The data largely concern the two major political parties in Nigeria (All Progressives Congress and People’s Democratic Party). Data were analysed using Machin and Mayr’s (2012) multimodal critical discourse analysis; this careful scrutiny revealed the manifold levels of exaggeration, satire and mockery that parties employ in their quest for visibility, acceptance and success.

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A Multimodal Discourse Study of some Online Campaign Cartoons of Nigeria’s 2015 Presidential Election

This study was focused on the political cartoons selected from some Nigerian tabloids at the eve of the 2003 general elections. We set out to analyze the language of the inscriptions, dialogues, monologues, labels and songs used alongside the pictures in the cartoons with emphasis on the layers of meaning such as register, denotation, connotation and creativity. We found out a preponderance of political terms and phraseologies in both standard and non-standard varieties of English in Nigeria as well as special neologistic coinages used in creating political awareness as well as castigating erring political actors. The study concludes that the language of political cartoons in Nigeria is brief, Nigerian English lexified, creative and artistic to attract the various segments of the citizenry into political participation. Keywords : Inscriptions, Register, Denotation, Connotation, Neologism, Varieties of English, Nominal groups, Electorate and Politicians. LWATI: A Journal of Contemporary Research , 9(2), 97-104, 2012

Maurice Tabang Bisong

Papers

The Language of Political Cartoons in Nigeria