Godswill Akpabio’s Rhetoric on the Matter of Joy Nunieh’s NYSC Certificate: An Analysis of His Win-Over Effect Using Elmo Lewis’ AIDA and Aristotle’s Three Pisteis

Abstract

The study focused on providing explanations for how and why the rhetoric of Godswill Akpabio on the matter of Joy Nunieh and the issues with her NYSC certificate was effective in winning over his audience. The ‘explanatory tools’ employed in the analysis were Elmo Lewis’ AIDA Model and Aristotle’s three pisteis. The work rested on framing as a theoretical basis. Survey data from another study by the authors – the parent study of this work – was rehashed to establish that Akpabio’s interview with Arise News spotlighted in this work did indeed win over a sample audience of 400 online users who had watched the interview on the YouTube channel of the television network. The analysis showed that Akpabio’s rhetoric in the interview did follow the four-step sequence of Lewis’ AIDA model and also did meet the audience’s expectations of him with regard to Aristotle’s three pisteis. The study concluded that scholars can always explain win-over effect using different analytical tools derivable from literature. The recommendation to practitioners of political rhetoric was that they should always rank ethos above logos or pathos in their political communication because audiences’ highest expectation of politicians is ethos above logos or pathos.