Text&Talk 2022; aop

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Umar Bello*

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Metaphors we are robbed by: a critical

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discourse analysis of ‘the national cake’ and
Nigeria’s prebendal elite

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https://doi.org/10.1515/text-2020-0130

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Received July 6, 2020; accepted February 24, 2022; published online March 21, 2022

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Abstract: This paper focuses on aspects of Nigerian corrupt practices and how
perceptions of public service and leadership responsibilities are framed linguis-

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tically, or discursively, around predatory elitist interests. It is based on two pre-
mises. The first pertains to the ways in which the national wealth is metaphorically
called the national cake, and how it is viewed as an object that elicits consumption.
Textual data is generated from 19 national newspapers and blogs that show 85
occurrences of the term the national cake. The surrounding contexts of the term
indicate that national wealth is eatable, shareable and is spatially located. The
second premise relates to how the Nigerian elite use metonymic associations to
make themselves serve as the aggregate of, or shorthand to, the geographical,
partisan and religious interests of the country. This stand-for relationship plays a
prominent role in establishing contiguous representations which aid (conceptual)
proximity to the national cake. This study uses critical metaphor analysis, corpus
linguistics and critical discourse analysis to demystify the facts about Nigeria’s
national life otherwise overlaid by ideology.

Keywords: corpus linguistics; critical discourse analysis; critical metaphor anal-

ysis; idealized cognitive model; national cake; prebendalism

1 Introduction
The basic objective of this paper is to shed light on Nigeria’s corruption at high
levels and to see how discourse may be involved in easing and normalizing the

Umar Bello holds an MA in English Linguistics from Birmingham City University and a PhD
(Linguistics and English Language) from Rhodes University, South Africa. His areas of research
interests include CDA, corpus linguistics, political discourse analysis, and social theory.

*Corresponding author: Umar Bello, English Language & Prep. Year Institute, Jubail Industrial
College, Royal Commission for Jubail & Yanbu, PO BOX 10099, Jubail Industrial City, 31961,
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, E-mail: bello.umar@gmail.com. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0173-
5175
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crime of larceny of the nation’s wealth called the national cake. The analysis of the

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conceptualization of corruption and corrupt practice is germane in any meaningful
search for a solution to this problem given the dialectical nature of discourse. Page

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(2018: 1), writing for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, laments that
“Corruption is the single greatest obstacle preventing Nigeria from achieving its

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enormous potential. … Yet few analytical tools exist for examining the full range
and complexity of corruption in Africa’s largest economy and most populous

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country”.
This study attempts to look at how the national cake is perceived discursively
and the potential mindset this perception may influence. Discourse is viewed here

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as having a primacy in shaping thoughts, and such thoughts can make corrupt

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practices appear acceptable or innocuous. The country’s perception of corruption
and how it is problematized has been polyvalent over time (Pierce 2012). The
term ‘corruption’ has changed various referents or signifieds throughout Nigeria’s
chequered history, which shows either a subversion of an ideologically unsuitable
referent or a clear lack of comprehension of its various ramifications. Essentially,
Nigeria’s oil fortunes have not been managed well due to corruption. Oby Ezek-
wesili, a former vice president of the World Bank and a one-time minister of edu-
cation, proclaims that an extensive review in 2012 on Nigeria has confirmed that over
$400 billion of the nation’s oil revenue has either been stolen or misappropriated
since Nigeria gained independence from the British in 1960 (Nnochiri 2012).
This study is based on a corpus of newspaper reports where the notion of ‘the
national cake’ is used. In the present study the concern is how the so-called
‘national cake’ is conceptualized linguistically, and how this conceptualization
may potentially lead to various actions, i.e., actions like subtly decriminalizing or
obfuscating looting of the treasury. Following the literature review in Section 2 and
the data and methodology in Section 3, the notion of the national cake, in itself a
fixed noun phrase that has gained wide currency, is discussed in 4.1. Then the
various conceptual ideas surrounding the cake are identified and analyzed in
4.1.1–4.1.3. National wealth, as we will see in the data analysis and just as its
metaphorical replacement, can be shared, consumed, apportioned and is spatially
located. Elitist representation of social actors that involves metonymic association
at different levels is also discussed and analyzed in 4.2.1–4.2.3 respectively.

2 Literature review
This section is divided into two parts, a discussion of two important social science
theories of corruption in Nigeria and a discussion of the nexus between language,
ideology and society.
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2.1 Prebendal politics and the theory of two publics in Nigeria

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There are two important theoretical ideas that have gained prominence in Nigeria

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in explaining the squander and misappropriation of the national wealth. The
theories have attempted to postulate about the issues of corruption in Nigeria

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using sociological lenses. These theories are Joseph’s (1987) prebendalism and
Ekeh’s (1975) analysis of the two publics. According to the theory of prebendalism,

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state offices including political and civil appointments are regarded as prebends
that can be appropriated by officeholders who use them to generate material
benefits for themselves, their constituents and kin groups. Joseph (1987: 67) further

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observes that a prebendal system

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will be seen not only as one in which the offices of the state are allocated and then exploited as
benefices by the office-holders but also as one where such a practice is legitimated by a set of
political norms according to which the appropriation of such offices is not just an act of
individual greed or ambition but concurrently the satisfaction of the short-term objectives of a
subset of the general population.

The political office holder, according to Joseph (1987), is a conduit for the
enrichment of self and others, and there are codified structures that justify such
appropriations. Diamond (2013: 1) adds that

the logic of governance in a prebendal system is not to generate public goods for develop-
ment –transportation, education, electricity, public health and sanitation, efficient admin-
istration of justice, and so on—but rather private goods for the officeholder and his family,
and ’club’ goods for a limited group of his clients and supporters.

It is probably this tendency to see ‘things’ from the perspective of the promotion of
(artificial) groupings like ethnic, partisan and religious totalities as ends in
themselves that makes metonymic associations necessary in their own rights as
elitist facility of dissimulation and reduction. Joseph (1983: 28) captures this as-
sociation well in seeing the Nigerian political society as a grid that has an intricate
and widening network of patron-client relationships, “which serve to link com-
munities in a pyramidal manner. At the summit of such networks can be found
individual office-holders in the federal and state capitals”. This pyramidal patron-
client relationship is captured by metonymic contiguity in terms of a generic and
specific relationship. The narrow top of the pyramid stands in for the wide bottom.
We will see how this is deployed in bargaining for a share of the national cake.
Ekeh (1975: 105), for his part, captures the ambivalence of a Nigerian public
official who has two publics to contend with, i.e., the primordial public and the
civic public. He defines the two publics as follows:
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A good citizen of the primordial public gives out and asks for nothing in return, a lucky citizen

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of the civic public gains from the civic but enjoys escaping giving anything in return whenever
he can. But such a lucky man would not be a good man were he to channel all his lucky gains

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to his private purse. He will only continue to be a good man if he channels part of the largesse
from the civic public to the primordial public. That is the logic of the dialectics. The unwritten
law of the dialectics is that it is legitimate to rob the civic public in order to strengthen the

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primordial public.

The same civic public is the public that provides health, security, education,

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infrastructure etc. to the citizens in general, so holding on to the notion of an
amoral public that does not deserve propriety and conscientious attention benefits

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only a few elite who are insulated from the collective maladies the general public
suffers, yet amply gain through patronage.

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These two theories have both aspects of the treatment of national wealth by the
political elite as a kind of feast and that of the representation of a whole by a part,
and these conceptualizations framed in discourse can be demystified by analysis.

2.2 Language, ideology and society

The two theories discussed above are cogent in interpreting Nigeria’s problem of
unrelenting corruption socio-politically. What is lacking, however, is a discursive
analytical investigation to reveal, in empirical linguistic terms, the inner workings
of these theoretical assumptions. In Critical Discourse Analysis, as succinctly put
by Fairclough (2001: 26), analysis starts not from texts and interactions but rather
“from social issues and problems, problems which face people in their social lives,
issues which are taken up within sociology, political science and/or cultural
studies”. In this sense, language, thinking and action are intertwined and dia-
lectically related. Their relationship cannot be fully disclosed, or accounted for, by
social theory alone. It is held by Chouliaraki and Fairclough (1999: 6) that social
science and linguistics be brought together within a single theoretical and
analytical framework “setting up a dialogue between them”. This dialogue oper-
ationalizes the theoretical assumptions of social sciences into empirical, verifiable
linguistic facts, especially with the assistance of corpus analysis.
Fairclough and Wodak (1997: 273) observe that “every instance of language
use makes its own small contribution to reproducing/and or transforming society
and culture, including power relations”. The way we construe issues can validate
the issues and also make them, in turn, reinforce our cognition and knowledge.
“Our concepts,” Lakoff and Johnson (1981: 3) maintain, “structure what we
perceive, how we get around the world, and how we relate to other people”. Our
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perception, informed by metaphorical projections, can shift our focus and reca-

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librate our thoughts.
Essentially, those who control the relations of power in Nigeria do not see

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certain acts of ’corruption’ as corruption, per se, and their access to certain forms of
discourse makes their own perception of what may be termed ‘corruption’ natu-

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ralized or appear to be simply common sense. They define what can be thought of
as corrupt and form an object that people can look at when they talk about cor-

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ruption. The essence of such elitist perceptions and formulation is the fact that they
have a platform in the media that popularize them. Van Dijk (2008: 66) maintains
that through such access and control over the means of public discourse, “domi-

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nant groups or institutions may influence the structures of text and talk in such a

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way that, as a result, the knowledge, attitudes, norms, values and ideologies of
recipients are—more or less indirectly—affected in the interest of the dominant
group.” In sum, the study of language or discourse can help in discerning and
delineating aspects of this relationship and its possible ideological impact.

3 Data and methods

The data here comprises the occurrences of the term the national cake within a span
of two years (2018 and 2019) in 19 newspapers and news blogs. The newspapers
are: Vanguard, Leadership, The Punch, Daily Trust, The Guardian, Independent,
Daily Post, Thisday, Concise, The Sun, Blueprint, Sahara Reporters (a news blog),
Premium Times, The Nation, Sunday Times, The Tide, The Will, Qwenu and Nigerian
Tribune. These newspapers constitute the major news outlets in Nigeria. They also
have a strong online presence. In fact, newspapers nowadays are more online and
people are able to be better informed through online access that is free than
through buying the printed versions. The Punch, for instance, is followed by
2,595,460 people. Sahara Reporters is basically an online news outlet and has
3,415,137 followers.
The news items that are analyzed are randomly selected from those two years
to show the prevalence of this construction. The occurrence of the term ‘the na-
tional cake’ is searched and what emerges is the pattern we see in the analysis.
When the elite talk, what they say is carried by the media, which helps in rein-
forcing and concretizing concepts and notions. The elite here are defined as the
political class and those that are close to the nucleus of power and wield enormous
political and economic influence.
The texts analyzed are from news articles, features and interviews. Holisti-
cally, the term ‘the national cake’ occurs 85 times, and 69 out of 85 show a
comprehensive pattern. This constitutes 80% of the overall data. The other 20%
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cannot be placed into any broad pattern. The three major patterns that emerge

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from the KWIC (key word in context) of the concordance output of the term are
neatly reflected in three tables for analysis. The KWIC is to the left of the term ‘the

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national cake’ where major evaluations are found.
Secondly, I also sample three texts from political leaders in Nigeria in their

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discussion of issues to do with inequitable distribution of the cake. The basic aim
here is to show how access to the national cake is negotiated and problematized. I

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have chosen these speeches purposely to indicate the multifarious points of bar-
gains in a prebendal system. The type of metonymic relationship analyzed here is
the containment ICM (idealized cognitive model).

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3.1 Analytical framework

Metaphorical analysis will essentially reveal key entailments of the metaphorical

projection of the so-called national cake that show its understanding as an edible
object while the metonymic analysis will demonstrate how the elite amplify
themselves to be everybody and everything in struggling over economic and po-
litical benefits. Cumulatively, the connection here is that the metaphorical aspect
will show the dimensions of the struggle for the cake at the center while the
metonymic analysis will show the kind of referential positioning that is obtained in
the struggle for the cake.
The analytical framework will involve the evaluation of the use of both con-
ceptual metaphors and metonymies in the data as explained below.

3.1.1 Conceptual metaphors

According to Charteris-Black (2004), a conceptual metaphor is a combination of

linguistic, pragmatic and cognitive properties. Linguistically, it causes semantic
tension in bringing two entities and blurring their differences. At the pragmatic
level, it has a covert speaker intention of influencing opinions and judgements by
persuasion. It is also cognitive because it can cause a shift in the conceptual
system. “The basis for the conceptual shift”, Charteris-Black (2004: 22) argues, “is
the relevance of, or psychological association between, the attributes of the
referent of a linguistic expression in its original source context and those of the
referent in its novel target context.” The conceptual shift can help in influencing
action as well. The semantic tension is resolved in a conceptual metaphor by
showing that the divergent parts of two entities are related. Consider, for example,
the following expression:

The time has come to partake of their own portion of the national cake (See Table 2, text 12)
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It has partake and portion as words that collocate with the national cake. Apart

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from the national cake metaphorically changing places with the national wealth of
the country, the words partake and portion further show associations related to a

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cake. This conceptualization subverts the literal meaning and adopts other asso-
ciations that fix national wealth as an edible object.

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This aspect of transference and conversion lends itself to ideological dissim-
ulation. According to Thompson (1984: 131) “relations of domination which serve

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the interests of some at the expense of others may be concealed, denied or
‘blocked’ in various ways”. The resultant effect thus is the shift in focus that has
been mentioned earlier. Balkin (1998: 244), in a similar vein, observes that

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Because A is modeled on B, properties of B are assumed also to apply to A, or A will be
understood or described as having corresponding features. Thus, metaphorical models have
conceptual or logical entailments. If an argument is a building, for example, then it must be
supported by foundations just as a building is.

In a Stanford study carried out by Thibodeau and Boroditsky (2011), they find that
“even the subtlest instantiation of a metaphor (via a single word) can have a
powerful influence over how people attempt to solve social problems like crime
and how they gather information to make “well-informed” decisions” (p. 1). Na-
tional wealth metaphorically projected as, for example, a ‘national thorn’ or ‘na-
tional trust’ may probably realize perceptions, associations and extensions that
will not tempt people to steal it.
Following Balkin (1998), metaphorical projections can produce ideological
effects in two ways, i.e., suppression of alternative conceptions and a highlighting
of a particular social reality. Metaphoric models selectively describe a situation,
and in so doing help to suppress alternative conceptions. The selected part be-
comes foregrounded and focally prominent.

3.1.2 Conceptual metonymies

Both Conceptual metaphors and metonymies are pliable to ideological manipu-

lation. Kövecses (2010) sees them as related in several ways. The only difference is
that of focus, but they share all the critical features that can be deployed in
analysis. Metaphor replaces one kind of thought with another while metonymy
shows a contiguous relationship which emphasizes one part of a whole over the
other or vice versa. Radden and Kövecses (1999: 21) thus define metonymy as “a
cognitive process in which one conceptual entity, the vehicle, provides mental
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access to another conceptual entity, the target, within the same idealized cognitive

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model”. Radden and Kövecses (1999: 17) further maintain that the cognitive view of
metonymy is manifested on the basis of the following assumptions:

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(i) Metonymy is a conceptual phenomenon;
(ii) Metonymy is a cognitive process; and

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(iii) Metonymy operates within an idealized cognitive model.

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These assumptions, like cognition and conceptualizations, are also true of meta-
phors. Both the processes of replacement and contiguity are crucial in ideological
analysis as they all serve to dissimulate, reshape or mystify issues. Similar to

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metaphors, Radden and Kövecses (1999) and Littlemore (2015) argue that meton-

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ymies play a key role in shaping the patterns of thinking of a listener or reader. In
contiguous relationships, there are many parts that can stand for the whole but
“which part we pick out determines which aspect of the whole we are focusing on”
(Lakoff and Johnson 1981: 36). Denroche (2015: 82), likewise maintains that
“choosing a single feature to identify a concept or entity gives that feature
salience” than the other parts, and it may come to form a prototype in an idealized
cognitive model (ICM).
The type of metonymic relationship analyzed later is the containment ICM.
Containment ICMs can be places conceptualized as containers for people,
i.e., “place for inhabitants, as in the whole town for the people living in the town”
(Kövecses 2010: 184). The elite as members of a state with geographical delimi-
tation are shown to be the container i.e. the state itself. The second type is a
‘specific for generic’ or ‘generic for specific’ type. Radden and Kövecses (1999: 34)
give an example of this in “boys don’t cry” as a specific situation involving one
person but generalized to involve all boys. Such generalizations can hide specifics.
Two of the three texts chosen for analysis reflect this subset while one reflects both.
The texts are generally central not only in seeing how certain issues are talked
about, but the extent to which the points raised are naturalized and thought to be
worthy of being points of undisguised claims and bargain.
Those other parts of the whole concealed can serve ideological interests. Take
this expression as an example:

Ndigbo will cease to be Nigerians in 2023 if denied Presidency (Nigerian Tribune: 11.11. 2019).

The Ndigbo is an ethnic group. The population of the Igbo ethnic group is 15% of
the Nigerian population, that is roughly 31 million people (CIA fact book: 2018).
As we can see in Diagram 1, the Source domain is contained, or subsumed, in
the Target, and it is the Target which has a larger appeal that is mentioned while
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Diagram 1: Source-in-target

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containment.

the source is obfuscated, as shown in the crossed line in the diagram. The source is

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not ideologically appealing. People will see the larger ethnic interest (the Target).

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Essentially, by this statement, Chukwuemeka Ezeife (a one-time governor in the
south-eastern states) has shown that the interests of a trifling few Igbo that may vie
for the Nigerian leadership are indeed the interests of all the Igbo. The Igbo po-
litical elite and their interests are thus the political interests of the 31 million Igbo
people. The Ndigbo presidential aspirant is, thus, the aspiration of the ethnic
group in total and vice versa.
By imagining the world one way, we make it more difficult to be imagined in
other ways. Thus, by imagining an ethnic group as a few privileged individuals, it
is difficult to be thought of in terms of the masses. When an elite member is used as
the aggregation of a whole ethnic group or state of the federation, for example,
then that elite or their interests are prioritized or prototyped over other segments of
the society that constitute the group.
To sum up, when metaphors and metonymies are used, one aspect of expe-
rience can be highlighted, while at the same time concealing others that may not be
ideologically congruent. Prebendal superstructures like state, ethnic grouping,
religion etc., however, are made to be represented by a few elite and vice versa. The
ideological interest for this contiguous relationship here is to bridge the gap be-
tween the periphery and the center. By also reducing the state to serve elitist
political interests or making the elite aggregate as a complete ethnic group or a
state or a religious grouping, quite likely that segment of the society is viewed
substantially as the society itself.

4 Data analysis
In this section I will start with the metaphorical analysis and then proceed to the
metonymic analysis.
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4.1 National wealth as national cake

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‘National cake’ is a metaphorical construction of the national wealth of the

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country. Apart from being metaphorical, it is a noun phrase that forms a pre-
supposition. In the data, it has occurred 80 times (out of 85) as: ‘The national

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cake’, that is, with a definite article ‘the’, prenominal modifier, ‘national’ and
the noun, ‘cake’. This fixed noun phrase makes it a presupposition (Yule 1996).

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A presupposition has intertextual properties that have the cognitive essence of
indicating givenness and implicit common knowledge (cf. Fairclough’s (2001)
example of the term ‘the Soviet threat’). Fixed noun phrases like this create

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ideal readers with foreknowledge of concepts cued in them. One effect of this is

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the priming of the reader to the givenness of this notion. Secondly, it can also
subtly decriminalize national larceny. Since a cake should be eaten, the met-
aphor screens the process of ‘stealing’ by using ‘eating’. In a nutshell, as argued
by Ricoeur (2004: 92):

metaphor holds together within one simple meaning two different missing parts of
different contexts of this meaning. Thus, we are not dealing any longer with a simple
transfer of words, but with commerce between thoughts, that is, a transaction between
contexts.

The successful transaction taking place here is between national wealth as the
sum total of the revenue that should be used for the development of a country
with a cake that should be consumed. Working for the nation changes place with
the consumption of the resources of the nation for personal or group interests.
Metaphorical representation like this can also have euphemistic effects for it can
hide messy details (Henig and Makovicky 2013). This fixed term, ‘the national
cake’, moreover, has generated a chain of other metaphors that has only deep-
ened its presuppositional givenness and omnipresence. It has also bred a range
of uses and functions that fixes its cake qualities while at the same time sub-
verting its actual referents. The examples below show three extensions of the
metaphor that further underpin the semantic, pragmatic and cognitive imprint of
the term ‘the national cake’.
In a nutshell, the term ‘(the) national cake’ which means national wealth has
generated three important patterns, namely:
1. National wealth is eatable
2. National wealth is divisible and shareable
3. National wealth is spatially located
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Table : A chain of metaphors related to eating.

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. Focus should be on how to bake the National cake

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. Waiting for crumbs to be given to them from the National cake
. It is a means to also eat in the National cake
. Just an avenue to have a big bite of the National cake

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. For them it is about having the biggest bite of the National cake
. Somebody that had taken his bite of the National cake

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. And south east to have a taste of the proverbial National cake
. Seeking to go to the center to take a bite at the National cake
. Was not her wealth but how to chop the National cake

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. Politicians gifts as it was a means to eat the National cake
. The Yoruba’s appetite for the national cake National cake

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. The time has come to partake of their own portion of the National cake

4.1.1 National wealth is eatable

In Table 1, the italicized lexicon conceptualizes national wealth as a cake.

In 1, there is the need for the cake to be baked. In other words, let the ‘revenue’ or
’oil wealth’ be generated first before it can be ‘eaten’. Item 2 talks about those who wait
for the crumbs, i.e., a little part of the wealth to be given to them. A cake can have
crumbs especially when in the process of having it shared or eaten. From 3 to 10, it is
all about the process of consuming the cake. Eat, bite, chop, taste are all related to acts
of consumption of the cake. However, note that bite occurs three times:
– a big bite of the national cake
– the biggest bite of the national cake
– taken his bite of the national cake

There are also references to sizes. In 11, there is a reference to the ‘appetite’ of a
particular ethnic group, i.e., which may be alluding to the particular turn of an
ethnic group to eat the cake. Finally, in 12, we have the word partake which has the
import of eating and drinking.

4.1.2 National wealth is divisible and shareable

Table 2 shows a preoccupation with the apportioning and sizing of the national
cake.
Share of the national cake occurs 21 times in the data. Share here alludes to a
portion of the cake. From 2 to 12, there is a collection of other terms that shows
various sizes of the cake. Two important issues are demonstrated here. Sharing of

1 The term chop means ‘to eat’ in Nigerian English. See Polzenhagen and Hans-Georg (2007).
12 Bello

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Table : The divisibility of the national cake.

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. (occurs  times) share of the National cake

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. A piece of the national cake because the so-called National cake
. This will happen because someone wants a bigger piece of our National cake
. See the opportunity as part of their own National cake

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. Is concerned with sharing a pitifully small National cake
. All in the bid to have their own chunk of the National cake

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. Believing this is just part of the National cake
. The thought of getting a piece of the National cake
. Oligarchs who have colonized a sizeable portion of the National cake

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. Her return to Nigeria ostensibly to eat her own portion of the National cake
. The time has come to partake of their own portion of the National cake

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. Potentially carving out the National cake
. (occurs  times) Sharing the National cake
. ( times) Sharing of National cake

and sharing the national cake refer to the act of distribution. A pitifully small, a
bigger piece, part of, chunk, a piece of, a sizeable portion, portion of all go further to
prove that the national wealth, just as a cake, is partible and shareable. Carving the
national cake conceptualizes the neat slicing of the cake with a knife. Using all
these terms further concretizes or materializes national wealth as something
capable of being divisible and apportioned.

4.1.3 National wealth is spatially located

Table 3 indicates spatial conceptualization. The cake is depicted as probably

located in the federal government headquarters in Abuja (the federal capital). It
indicates the perception of Nigerians about the wealth of the country being
centralized probably at the federal level.
While there is talk about location, there is also that of hindrance. This hin-
drance and how it is problematized will be discussed at the metonymic level to see
how the elite bargain for the cake using certain structures and arguments, espe-
cially those that can give them a leverage to access the cake. If everybody is going
to the center at the same time, then there will be a scramble. In this sense, the
scramble is for political positions, which are indeed the license to gain access to the
national wealth mostly shared in Abuja (the nation’s capital and seat of govern-
ment). Kalu (2009) considers epicenters like this the focal point from which elite
interests originate and are circulated outwards to those at the periphery (including
the foot soldiers). “The arrangement of power and influence within the political
machine”, Kalu (2009: 131) argues, is like “in an onion ring formation with those
closest to the inner core being the most powerful”.
 Metaphors we are robbed by 13

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Table : Space, struggle and movement in relation to the cake.

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 Political office is just an avenue to have a big bite of the National cake

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 Everybody is seeking to go to the center to take a bite at the National cake
 To provide access to yet another cache of the National cake
 The only ideology for now is fighting for access to the National cake

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 Who are sent on errand to bring home their share of the National cake
 Where people go to eat their share of the National cake

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 Rise up to seek for their own share of the National cake
 Who gather at the CONFAB with the sole aim of sharing the National cake
 It was the scramble for the National cake

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 Scramble for the National cake
 Politicians who converge in a camp for the sole purpose of sharing the National cake

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 Oligarchs who have colonized a sizeable portion of the National cake

In 1, a political office is seen as a launch pad to grab the cake while in 2, there is
an allusion to a center which is probably the federal capital. The actors in 9 and 12 are
already at the deictic center. They have arrived where the wealth is shared. Avenue,
center, and access all refer in a way to spatial configuration and the placement of the
cake as relatively distant from the speaker. Pierce (2012: 217) sees the Nigerian
government as doing a ‘gate-keeping role’ and “access to state office is the primary
means by which one can get access to large-scale capital”. Send, bring forth, rise,
seek, gather, scramble and converge all in a way show motion, movement and the
struggle for the national cake. Cakes are consumed in spaces and at occasions with
people; so is the national wealth. In 5, those who send their people to go and get a
share and come back represent Ekeh’s (1975) perception of the citizen who sees the
civic public as amoral, i.e., as one where somebody should just go to enrich them-
selves but also bring back to their immediate ‘primordial’ constituencies.
The position of the cake speaks about the general essence of the center of power
where all the national wealth is concentrated and where everyone wishing to get a
share should gravitate towards. Getting a share of the national cake depends on one’s
proximity to the center or the kind of political influence one holds that can give them
an advantage. As we shall see in the following discussion of the metonymic angle,
people show strength through claims that indicate a systematic compression of people
and space and the patronage that is expected to accrue due to this contraction.

4.2 Elite, patrons and clients as geographical, religious, and

partisan entities

As mentioned earlier, people struggle to get access to the national cake, and for
proximity to be amply achieved, there has to be representation. Representation
gives more leverage in accessing the national cake. Metonymic association is one
14 Bello

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strategy of getting access to the national cake because it facilitates, or helps, in

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conceptualizing how whole superstructures are reduced into small trifling indi-
vidual elite and their cronies. And the persistence in the use of this contiguous

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relationship makes patrons serve as whole superstructures to feed self and Ekeh’s
(1975) ‘primordial’ public.

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Three texts are sampled that indicate the reality of this reduction and will be
analyzed in turn. We will also notice the use of food metaphors in the metonymic

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analysis. Demands are made on the basis of the perception of the national wealth,
which is seen as a kind of feast for everybody.

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4.2.1 High ranking individuals and their cronies as a state of the federation

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In text 1 below, Dr. Bukola Saraki is bargaining for prebends on the basis of his state,
which is Kwara. Dr. Saraki was the leader of the senate in the 8th Assembly. He
served as the senate president from 2015 to 2019. The senate president is the third
most influential position in the political hierarchy in Nigeria, the other two being the
president and the vice-president. The talk below was given in 2018 while he was still
the senate president. The way he talks, in text 1, shows the level to which preb-
endalism has become entrenched among the political elite in the country.

TEXT 1:
The Federal Government appointed over 200 persons into juicy offices without allotting any
slot to me or (Speaker, House of Representatives, YakubuDogara). Everything went to Katsina,
and Lagos. If not for the love I have for Nigeria, we would have scattered everything. They
don’t want us in their party. They don’t like us in Kwara … What I am after is for my people to
enjoy dividend of democracy. (The Guardian: 1.8. 2018)

In the text, as shown in the metonymic analysis below, we can see the containment
aspect:

Source: Saraki(and cronies) (specific) (contained)

Target: Kwara State(generic) (container)

—————————————————————————————————————————
Source: Elite in Katsina and Lagos states (specific) (contained)

Target: Lagos and Kwara states (generic, containers)

Here we notice metonymy at work as Saraki and his cronies are made to be the
container of the state (Kwara). There is also the specific for generic type, especially
 Metaphors we are robbed by 15

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if we see it in terms of the population of Kwara state replaced with Saraki and his

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cronies. In other words, Saraki stands for the overall population of Kwara state. In
the other examples of Katsina and Kwara states, likewise, both the metonymies of

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containment and the specific-for-generic apply. Essentially, in this bargaining
statement, those other geographical locations or states in the Nigerian federation

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are made in reference to the few individuals who happen to gain access to the cake,
not the entire population from those states. If Saraki has been given access to the

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cake or ‘juicy appointments’, then the whole of Kwara state (3.1 million people)
(Population 2016) is impliedly pacified. Saraki and his group, being the contained
elements in this ICM, have become the container which is Kwara state itself. In this

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struggle, we can see how a whole geographical location or state of the federation is

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reduced to the interests of a few politicians. And Saraki is complaining that he and
his people who are Kwara state (itself) have been denied access to the resources of
the nation, and this is a legitimate claim of ‘marginalization’. It is legitimate on the
basis of a deep acceptance of prebendal politics.

4.2.2 Top party men as the overall party itself

For the part of Chief Rochas Okorocha, it is a bargain on behalf of the party in Text 2
below.

TEXT 2:
It is not that 50 per cent of PDP are running this government alone, but that PDP members are
holding major plum jobs in the country … They are getting fattened as a result and ready to
fight us. So, we must address issues and make sure that we settle our party men to make sure
that APC people hold great positions in boards and others to give them confidence and sense of
belonging. That is what we are asking for. (The Sun: 11.2.2017)

Rochas made the above remarks as a governor of Imo state. He argues on behalf of
a subset of the All Progressives Congress (APC), the ruling party. He appears to
lament that 50% of the people from the People Democratic Party, the main op-
position party in Nigeria, are occupying a major part of what the APC should have,
i.e., resources deployed in that area. But, in both cases, Okorocha is talking about a
clique of politicians from both sides.

Source: Few elite (Specific)

Target: 50% of PDP (Generic)

———————————————————————————————————————
Source: Few elite (specific)

Target: Party men/APC (generic)

16 Bello

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The Independent Electoral Commission of Nigeria (INEC) puts the votes cast at the

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presidential election to 15, 191, 847 for APC and 11, 262, 978 for PDP (Presidential
election results 2019). Of course, reference that is made of the party is not in terms

or
of the number of card carrying members of the party or even those who cast their
votes as the generic reference is made to appear. Okorocha is using the overall

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party platform to talk on behalf of those who are at the corridors of power, i.e., the
political godfathers, patrons and clients. He talks about plum jobs – another

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metaphorical projection of public service as ‘food’ and the fact that people are
fattened from what ordinarily the APC should enjoy. His quarrel apparently is not
that people are fattened from the national wealth (which is assumed to be legiti-

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mate prebends anyway) but that a wrong group of people is. The lack of contrition

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or compunction in openly seeing public service as capable of being plum and
fattening is apparent and the vehement contention is that rival patrons are
benefitting.

4.2.3 Few bureaucrats as overall Christians

Religion is also used as a point of agitation. In text 3, Femi Fani Kayode fights for
the ‘Nigerian Christians’ in TEXT 3.

TEXT 3:
Christians are not in charge of security agencies, Christians are not in charge of the Judiciary,
Christians are not in charge of the Executive, Christians are not in charge of the Legislature,
Christians are not in charge of anything in this country any more. (The Sun: 13.8.2019)

Fani Kayode (a one-time Minister of Aviation) appears here to be concerned about

Nigerian Christians. But given the sheer number of Christians in Nigeria, this
agitation may be a veiled one. In a 2019 Pew Research Report, Nigeria is placed as
number six with the highest Christain population in the world (put at 87 million)
(Diamant 2019). Fani is of course not talking on behalf of those 87 million Chris-
tians not being given offices but on behalf of those few political entrepreneurs who
happen to be of the Christian faith who may be jostling for positions to get access to
the national cake in competition with their counterparts of other faiths. Consider
the analysis below:

Source: Few elite (of Christian faith) (specific)

Target: overall Christians (generic)

 Metaphors we are robbed by 17

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We can see here that Fani is using a select few (including himself) to stand for the

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generic and to make the fight more sentimental, i.e., involving the feelings of the
overall Christian population in Nigeria.

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5 Discussion and conclusion

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The title of the article, ‘metaphors we are robbed by’ imitates Lakoff and Johnson’s
(1981) seminal book on conceptual metaphors entitled ‘Metaphors We Live By’.

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Metaphors, including metonymies here, are definitely crucial in the construction of
our social and political realities, and they can be used to serve ideological in-

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terests. In this paper, the analysis carried out at both metaphorical and metonymic
levels show the deep entrenchment of patron-client, prebendal politics in Nigeria,
where political office is seen as a source of self-enrichment. Kalu (2009: 129) sums
this up as ‘political mining’ which is a “relentless quest and use of politics as
means for securing instrumental rewards”. With metaphorical analysis, there is an
underlying persuasion in the tagging of national wealth as national cake. The
depth of this conversion involving collocations helps further to euphemize the
crimes of corruption or perpetration of larceny. When public office is reduced to
food, then there is a rhetorical persuasion in having that food eaten, shared or
apportioned because that is how food, or precisely (here) cake, is dealt with.

Figure 1: Data distribution of the national cake.

18 Bello

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Sharing and eating of the cake, thus, trade place with the issues of trust, propriety

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and accountability associated with public wealth.
As we can see in Figure 1, the divisibility or sharing of the cake has taken a

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huge space over other aspects. This shows the intense interests generated by the
sharing process. This is followed by the location of the cake and then the eating of

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the cake. If we place all these in logical order then the cake must first be located,
then shared and then eaten.

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As for metonymic associations, access to the cake is of importance, and this is
where stand-for relationships materialize. There is the issue of collectivization and

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RELIGION

PARTY
ELITE
STATE (SOURCE)

(TARGET)

Diagram 2: Source-in-target elitist

bargain points.

what Littlemore (2015) would call metonymic ‘shorthand’. Though the speakers
talk about multitudes or structures, they are the conceptual shorthands to those
references made. The points of bargains and claims are also multifarious as shown
in the analysis, see Diagram 2. An elite politician can bargain from his (religious)
faith, ethnic belonging, or party affiliation.
Essentially, whenever these bargains are put across, they are dissimulated
as collective claims while in the real sense only a few are being fought for. In
Diagram 2, ideologically, the Source in the domain is essentially obfuscated. See
the strikethrough line on the ELITE in the Source part of the Diagram. Targets are,
however, elaborated and foregrounded:
– Kwara (state)
– PDP/APC (party)
– Christians (religion)

The Source(s) are simply backgrounded, and this can best be understood when we
consider the sheer impracticality of the demand made and the statistics of people
involved in the bargains. Kwara state, for example, has 3.1 million people. Saraki in
Text 1 is not referring to that number not given juicy appointments. The Target is,
thus, used to hide the specifics which are Saraki’s cronies and families.
 Metaphors we are robbed by 19

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As is often the case with metonymies and due to the persistence of ideology,

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the line between Sources and Targets may become blurred. In this crucial sense,
collapsing Targets for Sources only aids corrupt bargaining as number is important

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in political bargains to access the cake. Thompson (1984) calls this act of mysti-
fication ‘dissimulation’. Dissimulation occurs both at metaphoric and metonymic

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levels. While metaphors hide the real nature of the object (i.e., national wealth)
and rhetorically redirect thought to a cake, which elicits sharing, eating and doing

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this within a spatial configuration, metonymies obfuscate Sources as suggested
earlier. The use of Targets by all of the three speakers is a convenient cover to the
few (undeclared Sources) that will benefit. Moreover, the focus on the elite as those

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to be talked about at those levels and as those to enjoy the national cake only

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confirms Lakoff and Johnson’s (1981) view that the area that is focused as repre-
sentative of the other whole in a metonymy is the most ideologically important,
and gradually it reduces the whole to that part.
Statements like juicy appointments, plum and fattening positions in boards are
made not in the context of distaste but in the context of legitimate claims and
complaints. Ironically, the APC (the ruling party) came with an anti-corruption
mantra that endeared the people to it and that made it defeat the then PDP gov-
ernment. The APC president, Muhammadu Buhari, is dubbed “mai gaskiya” (the
honest one) (Paden 2012: 27). As argued by Pierce (2012), corruption is a political
performative in Nigeria, and it has a particular meaning to the elite at different
points and contexts. The prebendal context is probably so naturalized and
commonsensical that it is not conceived as one of the ramifications of corruption,
and that is why a cry of anti-corruption is vociferously made on the one hand, and
prebendal bargaining is made, on the other. Obadare and Adebanwi (2013: 22) see
such contradictory action as “blatant antinomy between legal fact and quotidian
normativity”. They cite the example of the second republic, i.e., Shehu Shagari’s
regime (1979–1983) that enthusiastically pursued an “‘ethical revolution’, even as
its top echelons frenetically gorged themselves on the common wealth” (p. 22).
Thus, when discussion of the national wealth elicits aspects of the distri-
bution, collection and consumption of the national cake, there is a deeply
ingrained prebendal background that marginalizes a kind of understanding of
corruption and persistently promotes another. And when there is a persistent
representation of a select few to stand for superstructures like party apparatuses,
states in a federation or faiths, then those selected few are not only made ideo-
logically salient, but they over time may become synonymous with the delineated
structures.
20 Bello

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