Laughter, they say, is good for the soul. Even if such clichés did not exist, someone in Nigeria would have needed to manufacture them. Speaking of which, Peter Enahoro did write the book, ‘You Gotta Cry to Laugh’ first published around 1972. Variations of this statement can be found in: ‘If person no laugh, wetin person go do (If one doesn’t laugh, what would one do)?’ Or ‘I cannot come and go and kill myself (I can’t kill myself)’ These statements serve as coping mechanisms. Otherwise, what’s the alternative, right? I understand the yearning need to let off steam, as the alternative is better imagined.
Yet, I find it difficult to understand our seeming compulsion to reduce and trivialise every serious issue– sometimes bothering on life and death– to ‘bants,’ jokes, memes and gifs. People are even joking about the corona virus. Another instance is the recent ban of keke (tricycle) and okada (motorcycle) from some Lagos State roads. One minute, people appeared to be putting pressure on the Lagos State government. The next minute, the issue had dissolved into jokes on social media and people had turned the forced walking into an event of jokes and ‘bants’.
One favourite joke was about Sinach’s ‘I Know Who I am’ with the bit “I’m walking in power, I’m walking in miracles…” being singled out. There were also jokes from government representatives, though unintended. Or what would you call a spokesman castigating his government’s citizens as been too lazy, if not a joker? What happens now?
We do really need to declare certain issues as being too serious to be joked about.
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