Alternation Special Edition 29 (2019) 167 – 189 167 Print ISSN 1023-1757; Electronic ISSN: 2519-5476; DOI https://doi.org/10.29086/2519-5476/2019/sp29a8 Powerplay in Nigerian Political Visual Discourse: Profiling the All Progressives Congress Party Kunle Oparinde Maleshoane Rapeane-Mathonsi Gift Mheta Abstract The discourse of politics is believed to be dominated by manipulative rhetoric. In this paper, we analyse and discuss the tactical use of discourse resulting in powerplay by the All Progressives Congress (henceforth APC) political party in Nigeria. This is done from a Multimodal Discourse Analysis (MDA) perspective, using the re-contextualisation theoretical model for analysing misrepresentation and manipulation in political discourse. The paper unravels how the APC employs political discourse to exert influence on the masses. Along with support from other linguistic items, the study discovered that the APC are skilful in selecting specific visual and lexical items to achieve their political communication. Thus, this study exposes cases of political artifice as employed by the APC. In total, eleven (11) APC campaign materials were analysed using a purposive sampling method. The paper further confirms the hitherto-stated proposition that discursive strategies are essential in political campaigns and are in some cases employed to attract mass support from the electorate. Keywords: discourse, politics, communication, visuals, lexis