THERE’S something fundamentally different about Nigerians. Call it cultural audacity, call it emotional elasticity, or call it a survival algorithm coded deep into our DNA. Whatever you name it, the truth is simple: Nigerians will find a reason to laugh even on the day the world says they should be crying.
Take funerals, for example. In many countries, a burial is a strict, sombre affair, with black clothes, barely any food and controlled sniffles. In Nigeria? Entirely different business model. There are tears, yes, but you’ll still see small clusters of people at the back sharing rice, others cracking jokes about the deceased (Ah, you know Ebele was a fool for women), and arguing loudly about when food will get to them.
At some point, the atmosphere becomes so animated that if not for the matching outfits of the immediate family, you might not even know who is bereaved. Everyone is laughing, dancing, eating, and comparing wrappings of souvenir bags. And you’re left wondering: Is this a funeral or a family convention with light refreshments?
That’s Nigeria for you, an ecosystem where humour isn’t a luxury; it’s a strategic tool. When things get tough, and they often do, Nigerians don’t fold; they improvise, innovate, and crack jokes. And in 2025, with the rampant rate of terrorism, banditry and kidnapping, nothing captures this more than the explosion of bandit memes and Hausa-survival skits taking over TikTok, X and WhatsApp groups.
One of the videos that perfectly captures this coping culture is the now-viral clip of two guys “learning Hausa for survival.” One holds a knife like an amateur bandit-in-training, while the other, suddenly inspired by the fear of heaven and earth, starts speaking/singing in broken Hausa with exaggerated confidence. Instead of escalating the mock attack, they both end up laughing, dancing, and re-enacting a fantasy where speaking Hausa magically transforms a bandit into a friendly guy next door. Another trending video features two men entirely covered in a black substance from head to toe, only their briefs visible, swinging from trees, grunting like monkeys. That is seemingly their strategy for survival because “Bandits kill humans, not monkeys.” It’s absurd and brilliant. Somewhere in that madness is a very Nigerian logic: if the system won’t protect you, you may as well innovate your own clearance strategy, even if that strategy belongs in a wildlife documentary.
And then there’s the classic meme rule for travelling: don’t play Wizkid, don’t play Omah Lay, don’t even attempt Amapiano, just play Hausa music. According to the meme creators, the moment your car is blasting Arewa tunes, the hypothetical bandit checkpoint immediately welcomes you as one of their own. They imagine the bandit saying, “Kai, this one is our person. Let him pass.” It’s dark humour. It’s ridiculous. But it’s also a real reflection of a population exhausted yet still choosing laughter as a business continuity plan.
In all honesty, these memes aren’t coming from a place of comfort. They’re coming from citizens grappling with insecurity, feeling helpless, and defaulting to what they know best, humour as emotional armour. Because what else can you do? Carry guns to church? Form anti-bandit vigilante squads? Relocate en masse? The average Nigerian knows that none of these ideas is our silver bullet. There’s always that nagging, uncomfortable truth sitting at the back of the mind: when the worst comes to worst, no number of jokes, memes, or clever Hausa phrases will keep you safe. So instead of collapsing, we laugh. We create memes. We share skits. And in those moments of collective humour, the fear loses some of its power.
This trend of bandit memes, Hausa-survival tutorials, and TikTok skits is not accidental. It’s a reflection of Nigeria’s long-standing tradition of using humour as a shock absorber. These creators take real insecurity challenges, kidnappings, bandit attacks, law enforcement failures, and flip them into exaggerated survival strategies. In many of these skits, the “solution” is learning Hausa greetings like “Yowa,” shouting surrender phrases in thick accents, or dancing the “Arewa shuffle” to demonstrate peaceful intentions. It’s satire with a sharp edge, humour with a hint of desperation.
Of course, the backlash is real. Not everyone finds this funny. Some argue it trivialises violence. Some say it normalises criminality. Others believe it desensitises the public to tragedies that should be treated with seriousness. And they’re not wrong. There’s a dark underbelly to this trend, videos of real bandits flaunting weapons, cash, or even filming TikTok lives with kidnapped victims, posting daily vlogs, and even sharing locations. While citizens are laughing at the memes, real danger is lurking, very literally. And yet, the irony is sharp: when one criticises a politician online, law enforcement springs into action. But when bandits flaunt violence, accountability is elusive.
But even with all this, one truth stands tall: humour is our last line of defence. It’s the shield we hold when institutions fail, when leaders give speeches instead of solutions, when communities feel abandoned. It prevents emotional burnout and keeps the collective morale from collapsing under the weight of constant bad news.
At the end of the day, memes or no memes, jokes or no jokes, the responsibility still sits squarely with those whose Key Performance Indicator (KPI) is to keep citizens safe. Governance isn’t improvisation. Nigerians shouldn’t have to learn “Hausa for survival” or practise monkey impersonations just to stay alive.
Through humour, Nigerians articulate a frustration with government inefficiency without needing to say it directly. It’s an unspoken call to action: “We’re laughing, yes, but keep us safe.”
Until the day the system finally works the way it should, Nigerians will do what they’ve always done: laugh through the storm, innovate new ways to cope, and turn tragedy into a digital cruise.
Because in this country, even when the world is falling apart, somebody somewhere will still say, “Abeg shift, make I laugh small.”
