This paper analysed the syntactic features used by online commenters on the alleged national assembly fuel subsidy bribery scandal. The study employed both primary and secondary sources. The primary source included 120 purposively selected Vanguard Online readers’ comments. Purposive sampling technique was used to select comments that focus on topical issues that bordered on fuel subsidy. The choice of vanguard is based on the peculiar nature of the comments posted on the site. The secondary source included books, journal, articles and the internet. The data selected were analysed using Halliday and Mathiessen’s (2004) Systemic Functional Grammar. This is because SFG is based on the choices that grammar makes available to speakers and writers. The results of the study showed that the dominant syntactic structures such as paratactic constructions, hypotactic constructions, thematisation and verbalised process option were used to achieve equal and unequal arrangement of utterances, and to draw attention to inequality in the society. The study concluded that the commenters’ syntactic choices on the alleged national assembly fuel subsidy committee bribery scandal were shaped by their understanding of the socio-political situation in Nigeria.

This paper analysed the lexical features used by online commenters on the alleged national assembly fuel subsidy bribery scandal. The study employed both primary and secondary sources. The primary source included 120 purposively selected readers’ comments. The secondary source included books, journal, articles and the Internet. The results showed that lexical set, antonyms, lexical repetitions, Nigerian English compounds, name calling, collocations and lexical borrowings were the notable lexical features used by the commenters.