Abstract

This study explores graffiti in Sokoto metropolis, northern Nigeria, as a dynamic medium of public discourse and social action. While graffiti has long existed in Nigerian spaces such as university toilet doors and airports, systematic analysis has been largely absent, and no study has yet documented its forms and functions in Sokoto. Working within a socio-pragmatic framework, the research analyses thirty photographic samples of graffiti collected from the Mabera and Old Airport districts alongside data from three gender-balanced focus group discussions. The inscriptions reveal a striking range of speech acts, from regulatory warnings and political endorsements to economic protests, identity claims, religious affirmations, and playful poetic displays. Crucially, their illocutionary force emerges not only from linguistic form but also from contextual variables such as location, audience, and the protective anonymity of the writers. Toilet doors become private stages for taboo confessions, while school walls and street corners broadcast political resistance and economic grievances to a wider public. The study contributes new knowledge by demonstrating that in Sokoto, graffiti functions as a shadow public sphere where citizens circumvent cultural and political hierarchies, negotiate social norms, and articulate sentiments that formal institutions or polite conversation often suppress.