In February 2021, a popular pastor who have been preaching sermons that stress why people should avoid relationships embedded with lies from partners for more than 6 years got the attention of many Nigerians after a video of him gone viral on social media. For several days, individuals and businesses used his Lori Iro parlance for varied communication and conversation purposes.

Our analyst notes that Lori Iro as a cognitive metaphor redefined metaphorical marketing strategy in Nigeria during the trending days. A number of businesses employed the parlance for advertising and marketing of their products and services, telling established and prospective clients the need to continue patronizing them and discard whatever competitors are telling them.  Our analyst also found that people who have had negative experiences in their marital and pre-marital relationships used the parlance to chide their partners regarding fake promises.

Our analyst further notes that Lori Iro as an example of cognitive metaphor takes people back to the past events or activities that impacted them negatively. The consequences of the events or activities are expected to shape how they would respond in the future. It has enhanced people’s ability to seek calculus-based trust, identification-based trust and knowledge-based trust, which are necessary for developing and repairing fruitful relationships.

Age-Long Civic and Relationship Mistrust

Our analysis of 151 tweets which contain the parlance, 113 [74.8%] was the main tweets initiated by individuals and businesses while 25.2% were retweets. Examination of the contexts where the parlance is used indicates that it was more associated with lifestyle, especially love or marital relationships than politics and business [see Exhibit 1].

Within the lifestyle, analysis also reveals that people significantly made reference to fake promises in preacher-to-follower relationship and member-to-member relationship. “This is not #Lori-Iro and it’s beyond a mere wish of God When? Since the inception of the REVIVAL HOUR at #MASS6, we’ve seen God grant: Foreign/Local Scholarships without application. Healing of Protracted illnesses. Resident Permits,” one of the tweets said. “I cover you with the blood of Jesus [Musician and entertainment industry reference] “Lori Iro,” another tweet said.

The Twitter Community was also replete with the tweets that chided businesses and their products during the trending days. For instance, a tweet pointing out that “Let’s look at this from an unbiased point of view. I create a product and tell you it’s good for you and will save your life but I am not liable for any damage it might cause Lori Iro.”

Popular musicians who used the parlance to create more engagement with their fans were not spared from lashes dished out to the people perceived to be indulging in constant fake promises.  Davido, a prominent pop culture musician, was predominantly attacked, our analysis reveals. “You Were Never Broke!” – Fans Blast Davido for Saying He Was Once BROKE,” a tweet posted by a news medium said.

In political contexts, the parlance gave Nigerians, most importantly social commentators and political analysts and activists opportunity to express their distrust and mistrust in the government-citizen relationship over the years. Majority of the political narrative driven tweets analysed indicate that Nigerians want better governance, accountability and transparency in all institutions. Their positions are not quite different from the view of Alhaji Tanko Yakasai, a founding member of the Arewa Consultative Forum and elder statesman, who says during a forum that “the mistrust among major sub-regional groups remained a threat to the democratic process despite an end to the Civil War more than 50 years ago.”

Exhibit 1: Dominant Contexts of Lori Iro Application

Source: Nigerian Twitter Community, 2021; Infoprations Analysis, 2021

Analysis clearly indicates that people are ready to repair their relationship as a significant number of the tweets suggest constant tracing to the previous, present and future promises with the possible intent of having tactics for spotting out the likely impacts of fake promises. Our analyst discovered 295 thinking traces, which entail back, present and forward categories from the tweets.

When Lori Iro was used within the political contexts, users were more than 17 times remembering previous promises of politicians, political parties and governments. Less than 1 time remembering previous promises of businesses, sporting women and men, and organisations when it is employed within business and sports respectively. The frequency of remembering the promises is the same for education context while the remembrance is more than 20 times when the parlance is used within lifestyle context.

The consideration of remembering the promises using present thinking trace reveals that people are more than 3 times remembered fake promises in their marital and interpersonal relationship while it was more than 2 times when they used the parlance in politics, sports and education contexts.

Concerning the future dealings, our analysis establishes that people are more likely to be wary of promises from politicians, political office holders and parties because they were more than 10 times ready to remember previous promises made by the stakeholders in political institutions. Despite the significant use of the parlance in the lifestyle context, people are less likely to be wary of fake promises in the future because analysis reveals that they were more than 5 times prepared to remember the previous promises.

Exhibit 2: Thinking Traces [back, present and forward]

Source: Nigerian Twitter Community, 2021; Infoprations Analysis, 2021

Winning Formulas for Deploying Lori Iro

Two strategies predominantly determined how people employed the parlance in the contexts and thinking traces. Valence and arousal were significantly found in texts. For instance, a tweet usually represents distress and depress when the person who tweeted it remembered how previous fake promises impacted his or her negatively. On the other hand, tweets sometimes make a jest of the previous promises by being relaxed and excited that one of the partners failed to realise the fake promises.

For the arousal strategy, tweets indicate that the users of the analysed handles were aroused and sometimes miserable when they remembered previous promises. At the same time, some were pleased that one of the partners was sluggish to know that fake promises are being pushed to him or her.  Our analysis shows that one unit of deploying valence strategy increases the use of arousal strategy by 1.3%, indicating people’s ability to add pie of previous experiences for the demystification of the parlance towards regulation of their consciousness to fake promises [see Exhibit 3 and Exhibit 4 for the strategies’ reflections across the contexts and thinking traces].

Exhibit 3: Dominant Psychological Orientations in the Contexts

Source: Nigerian Twitter Community, 2021; Infoprations Analysis, 2021

Exhibit 4: Dominant Psychological Orientations through Thinking Traces

Source: Nigerian Twitter Community, 2021; Infoprations Analysis, 2021