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The paper interrogates the various discourse strategies adopted by the electorate on social media (SM) to delegitimize political opponents and engender rivalry in the build-up to the February 2019 presidential elections in Nigeria. A total of forty-two (42) Facebook (FB) posts on Nigerian political discourse were purposively selected between November 2018 and January 2019, and subjected to pragmatic and evaluative analysis, adopting Mey’s (2001) pragmatic acts theory and Martin and White’s (2005) appraisal theory. From our analysis, fourteen (14) different delegitimization strategies were found to have been utilized by the writers to achieve the pragmatic acts of discrediting political opponents as unworthy of being voted into powers, while concurrently persuading the electorate to support their side instead. These strategies include the following categories: facts and evidence, issue-based rhetorical question, frank issue-based opinion, contrastive engagement, and dysphemism. Others are implicit antithesis, direct verbal attack, allegations, irony, demonization, self-indictment, lexical gymnastics, sarcasm, and prophetism. The findings show overt and covert persuasive strategies and interactivity towards the pragmatic act of delegitimizing political opponents, showing words as the real weapons on the battlefield of politics. The analysis further reveals that people tend to support a SM post not necessarily because it is true, but because it supports the chances of their candidate or hurts the opposing side. Thus a platform has been provided for implicit and explicit political stance taking, which may be difficult outside SM due to certain insecurity and face threats. SM has become a site for a running, fierce, and open political discourse, the new voice for the voiceless, as well as for issue-based campaigns in Nigeria. It may well become a space where general elections are won and lost even before a vote is cast.

Zamisel o skupnem prometnem prostoru (ang. living streets) se je razvila šele nedavno, upošteva pa se predvsem pri prostorskem načrtovanju in razvoju mest. Njena glavna namena sta zagotavljanje varnega dostopa za vse vrste prometa in s tem osredotočanje na splošni trajnostni razvoj mesta. Avtorji v članku proučujejo značilnosti glavnih prometnih žil v poslovnem središču Pešavarja z vidika koncepta skupnega prometnega prostora, na podlagi česar bi se lahko sprejeli ustrezni ukrepi za izboljšanje tega mestnega območja. Predpostavljajo, da trenutna infrastruktura skupnega prometnega prostora v poslovnem središču mesta ne zadovoljuje potreb različnih uporabnikov (nakupovalcev, stanovalcev, zaposlenih in ljudi, ki območje uporabljajo za rekreacijo). Da bi določili in analizirali osnovno javno infrastrukturo v poslovnem središču mesta, so opravili raziskavo, ki je vključevala opazovanje in anketo. Raziskava je razkrila težave, kot so hrup, onesnažen zrak, smeti, pomanjkanje ustrezne javne prometne infrastrukture in površin za pešce ter slabo upravljanje prometa. Anketiranci so izrazili močno nezadovoljstvo z zdajšnjo ureditvijo za pešce in parkiranje na ulici. Terenska raziskava je poleg tega pokazala, da površine za pešce ne zadovoljujejo potreb pešcev, pomanjkanje ulične opreme pa prebivalce odvrača od tega, da bi se bolj družili.

The idea of living streets has recently evolved and is currently being considered in urban planning and development for cities. The main purpose of the living streets concept is to provide safe access for all types of traffic, thus focusing on the overall sustainability of a city. This study investigates the characteristics of urban arteries in Peshawar’s central business district (CBD) from the perspective of the living streets concept to form a basis for policy measures that can be adopted to improve the CBD. The study hypothesizes that the living street infrastructure in the CBD does not accommodate the needs of various users (shoppers, residents, employees and those visiting for recreation). A field survey, including an observational survey and questionnaire, was conducted to identify and analyse basic public infrastructure in the CBD. Issues such as noise, air pollution, litter, a lack of appropriate public transit and pedestrian infrastructure, and poor traffic management were discovered. Strong dissatisfaction was recorded when the respondents were asked about current pedestrian and on-street parking arrangements. The field survey also found that the current pedestrian arrangements were insufficient for pedestrian needs, and the absence of street furniture discouraged community engagement in the study area.