Salisu, Muhammad RajAdamu, Usman2023-12-122023-12-122021-02-05James, William. “The Principles of Psychology” Henry Holt, 1890. Janda, A. Laura. “Cognitive Linguistics in the Year 2010” “International Journal of Cognitive Linguistics”, Nova Science Publishers, Inc. 2010. Jideofor, Adibe. “Ethnicity, Hate Speech & N-ation Building, www. Gamji.com> adibe>adibe 19. Lazarus, Richard, “Emotions and Adoption”, Oxford University Press, 1991. Sperling, George. “A model for Visual Memory Tasks” Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, 1963. Shang. Guo-wen. “Perceptional Basis for Language Comprehension” Journal of Foreign Language Research, 2011.https://keffi.nsuk.edu.ng/handle/20.500.14448/3198This study examined selected inciting comments of two Nigerian political leaders; General Muhammadu Buhari (Rtd.) and General T.Y. Danjuma (Rtd.) whose speeches at particular occasions caused disaffections amongst Nigerians. The research adopted an eclectic theoretical framework; mental spaces from cognitive linguistics and perceptual experience - an aspect of cognitive psychology to examine how human experiences affect perception and conceptualization of issues. The methodology used was a purposive selection of statements made by these two personalities who enjoy reverence from their supporters. The result of our findings indicates that, given their fame in the society and amongst their supporters, the speakers' utterances understudy and thecontext, in which they occurred, produced two varied perceptions. The first was from the immediate audience, who are members of the speakers' in-group. To this group of people, the speaker's utterances were meant to lure them to action against other groups perceived as 'enemies'. The second perception was realized in the audience who are members of the speaker's out-group - who view the speaker's utterances as inciting statements meant to cause disaffection amongst the larger society. In both cases, the audiences arrived at their respective conclusions using their mental spaces that conjured to them negative assumptions against the others.enCognitive Linguistics, Perceptual Experience, Mental Spaces. I nciting UtterancesArticle