The paper seeks to examine peculiar creative expressions used during the 2019 general elections process in Nigeria with a view to carrying out a lexico-semantic analysis of the terminologies within the situational context they were used in consideration of the time, political space and interactants. The study adopts the Contextual Theory of Meaning as the relevant theoretical framework. Data for the study were collected by means of participant observation and such comments during political interactions in campaigns, social media platforms, political gatherings, news items and written materials. The findings indicate that, there were numerous of such terms generated and used during the various stages of the electoral process by the major actors such as the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and its adhoc staff, political parties, party loyalists and the electorate. The lexical items demonstrate the dynamic nature of language and its utterers to produce words or expressions for immediate needs-based communication which is politically motivated in this circumstance. It is observed that the semantic value of such lexical choices are contextually restricted and situationally restrained to, and comprehensible by the users within the 2019 electoral milieu driven by the peculiarity of the events. Aside from the fact that the study has broaden the scope of language used during political activities, the study also recommends multi-dimensional investigations into the political language in Nigerians in order to increase the already enlarging register of English for political discourse.
Lexico-semantic analysis, General elections, Creative expressions, Needs-based communication, English for political discourse.
