The comic acts were funny, back-breaking, rib-cracking and belly rumbling. But as time progressed, and as the old retired, the 'new-school' considered it very important to deliberately rehash old, dead and buried jokes, give it some ugly, ugly make-over, twist it, impregnate it, give birth to it and …wait for it… expect their audience to burst out into resounding laughter? The truth is that most of us laugh out of nothing short of pity because we are all sympathetic to their tear-inducing backgrounds.
There is a consistency that bedevils and trails the comedic scene. And it revolves around the following questions:
When will the stammerer joke retire? When will it go to a place of no return? When will it breathe a sigh of relief proclaiming the chant 'victory at last'? If this joke was human, it would have led a revolution against Nigerian comedians. Jokes like these have exhausted their usefulness and only come across as tasteless and callous to those who suffer from these defects in their speech.
When will the repetition of a joke by various acts end? There is an avalanche of un-originality that has taken over the comedic-sphere. We can forgive the originator of the joke for repetition but from other copy cats? Where is the shame? Is there something in the water of the Nigerian entertainment industry be it in movies, music or comedy that prioritizes on insulting our intelligence? It seems there is a meeting somewhere, where they all connive to assault our sensibilities.
When will the Warri eulogy or rather dirge retire? We get it…Warri no dey carry last, Warri is the 'hardest' place on earth. However, if we were silly enough to judge the people of Warri from Nigerian comedians they would be the entity that boasts of the dumbest, loudest and arrogant criminals in Nigeria. We also see the reinforcement of this stereotype in AY's 30 days in Atlanta which retrogressed our sensibilities by 50mm/sec.
When will the stereotypical tribal jokes end? While I enjoy a joke or two on the three stubborn he-goats that constitute themselves as the 3 major ethnic group in Nigeria, we can all speculate how these jokes end with the money conscious Igbo, the murderous Hausa and the scared witless Yoruba stereotypes. #Boring.
Some honourable mentions include tasteless sexual innuendos, the comparisons between ajebutter and ajepako, and the pilfering of foreign jokes, garnished with a fraudulent Nigerian swagger – apparently we the audience are so mentally slow that we would never find out.
It is not far-fetched to say that majority of Nigeria's comic acts careers would nosedive if the aforementioned points are banned from the comedic scene. So who would be the saviour, the shining light and redeemer to restore the pedigree of the Nigerian comedic scene? Or was there any pedigree in the first place?
Image via NYTimes
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