METAPHORICAL CONSTRUCTIONS OF PATERNITY FRAUD IN SELECTED NIGERIAN NEWSPAPER REPORTS

Paternity fraud has emerged as a prominent media theme in Nigeria, reflecting deep-seated social anxieties surrounding trust, masculinity, gender relations, and family integrity. This study examines how Nigerian newspaper discourse constructs paternity fraud through conceptual metaphors, drawing on eighteen articles from nine major national newspapers published between 2015 and 2024. Guided by Lakoff and Johnson’s (1980) Conceptual Metaphor Theory, as further developed by Kövecses (2010), this study identifies seven dominant metaphorical patterns through which paternity fraud is represented and evaluated in Nigerian media discourse. Collectively, these metaphors construct paternity fraud as a concealed but discoverable truth, a strategic act of deception, a socially contagious threat, and a force that inflicts both gradual and catastrophic harm on individuals, families, and social trust. The study concludes that Nigerian newspaper discourse relies heavily on metaphor to moralise paternity fraud, foreground male victimhood, and legitimise emotional collapse, relational breakdown, and violent response as natural or inevitable outcomes of paternity uncertainty.