… where sa-tyres never go flat
… where sa-tyres never go flat
Just the other day while on a visit to my mother’s, I gave the youths filling up the potholes on the road an handsome cash of N5000. What if the contractor had done the road excellently with expensive materials, how will these youths make money from the hundreds of cars on that route? I’m sure they are making a lot!
It is all too often those at the bottom of society who are demonised and derided. There’s too little punching up. Where is the scrutinising – and yes, ridiculing – of the poverty-paying bosses, the tax dodgers, or the bankers responsible for economic disaster? Satire can be brilliantly effective at encouraging us to challenge the way our society is run. It is a more crucial element of our democracy than we perhaps think, and we should fight to bring it back to the prime-time slots it deserves.
Satirist Elnathan John is similarly cautious about the role of satire in Nigeria. In a tweet, he commented, “Nigerians don’t want any real satire. They’d burn down the station. They want weak impotent comedy they can giggle at.” However, as satire grows in popularity in Nigeria, some disagree. They warn against dismissing this comedic, smart and playful approach to registering dissatisfaction too soon.
This body of work is well-constructed if it were to be compared to a lego house, it is relevant (not least due to Nigeria’s heated political climate), and it is proof that Satire is by no means a dead art form in these parts.
“Take for instance, the last time we had an election. My family was given two bags full of Kuli Kuli and Garri to Vote for Party A. On the election day, party B offered us a cylinder full of groundnut and some bags of Garri. That is what we have been eating for the past 4 years. And it only finished just yesterday, this yesterday”.
Passengers bolted after the bus like male monkeys on heat chasing after females to unleash testosterone. Some passengers dived in through the door, some jumped in through the window, some got in through the driver’s doorless compartment; gaining entry into the ‘Molue’ is much more difficult than the Power Holding Company of Nigeria providing electricity for 30 minutes nonstop.
My dear, I think we should begin by thanking the United Kingdom. For keeping you safe. For helping you recover. For always being there when you need a doctor, a hospital, when you needed some rest, when you needed to park a plane and when nosy Nigerians decided it was their business what exactly you were spending money treating.
This brilliant piece of satire first appeared in The Punch Newspaper, on 16 July 2018. Scene I It’s the zero hour. Nobody […]
This is an extract from Naija No Dey Carry Last, a book by Nigeria’s ‘King of Satire’ Pius Adesanmi, first published here […]
This is an extract from a longer piece published by The Cable and titled, “2019: Nigeria’s Emerging Political Leaders“. Reuben Abati is a […]
