Why Nigeria Has Become The Butt Of Jokes

Nigeria was created by Great Britain on January 1, 1914. It was the result of its colonial adventures and enterprise. The making of Nigeria followed the typical process and procedure Britain followed in the making of other colonial entities it had created in America, Asia, Australia and Africa.

British colonial enterprise usually started with a trade which any of its nationals (individuals or corporations) would spearhead and depending on its profitability, the British state would intervene to holster the individual or corporate efforts with British state rights and diplomatic interventions which could translate to violent conquest or diplomatic assaults. In the case of Nigeria, both arsenals were deployed as treaties of friends, protection and such like terms were used and at the slightest indications, the interpretations of which resided with the British consuls, wars of conquest and pacification were declared to clobber the ethnic nationalities or communities to submission and subjugation. These processes and procedures took place in between 1849 and 1914 when Lagos was conquered in 1851 and colonised in 1862 and the other communities numbered in hundreds were conquered and colonised and all of them collected together combined and named ‘Nigeria’.



The Nigerian nation-state was patented on the world’s political map as the Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria in 1914. There is nothing with individuals or even corporations like countries becoming the butt of jokes. At one thing or the other, persons and corporations such as countries like Russia, Turkey, China and India were derided as vast rural-wanabe-empire or Italy as a ‘mere geographical expression’ or India the ‘povertycapital of the world’ or China the ‘throng of toiling humanity’.

But what makes these jokes stick or fall off the person being joked about is how the person perceives or treats it. Does he even know or be aware of the joke or does he even live it in justification in the case of all the countries mentioned above, they tried to shake off the joke and even went ahead to change the narrative that gave rise to the jokes. Take Turkey, a country that resulted from the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire in the late 19th century but due to the dynamics that played out following the World War I, it became seriously distracted as it could hardly fit into its shared cultures of Asia Minor and Europe and so it was socio-economically and politically distressed.

But Ataturk struck and changed the narrative and made Turkey a modern democracy based on capitalism. Turkey is no longer the ‘Sickman of Europe’ – a joke. Russia was the butt of jokes over its unattainable imperialistic designs founded on archaic autocratic political and economic framework aping France and Britain.

The Bolsheviks saw through the emptiness of the magnificent St. Petersburg, the capital, and struck with its October 1917 Revolution which catapulted Russia from its rural peasantry to industrial giant that led the world into space in 1968. Italy, described by Metternich as a “mere geographical expression”, has since transformed as one of the leading world states.

India, once the poverty capital of the world, has since become the possessor of the atomic bomb. China, which Europe and America derided just a few decades ago, has since become a real world power with technological and economic power that has dwarfed Britain, France and others and rivals the USA. Nigeria is the butt of world jokes.

They taunt it as a ‘giant’ of Africa but their real estimation is that of a dwarf World leaders making Nigeria the butt of uncomplimentary jokes stuns Nigerians of their own perception of Nigeria’s worth. General Collins Powell of the United States pointedly called Nigeria “a nation of scammers.’’ President Donald Trump tagged Nigeria ‘’a shithole’’ and described its then president in uncomplimentary words.

Then came the very testament by Britain the maker of Nigeria. Britain had staged one of those useless and pretentions conferences it is known for in London and had cajoled world leaders to attend and Nigeria’s newly elected president, General Muhammadu Buhari, it and its western allies according to President Goodluck Jonathan had helped install, was billed to attend the then British Prime Minister Gordon Brown had attended a meeting at Buckingham Palace with Queen Elizabeth II, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Speaker and Leader of the House of Commons which virtually made the British estate of the realms complete and so the prime minister was overheard telling these rulers of Britain that could they imagine that leader of world’s most fantastically corrupt countries namely; Nigeria and Afghanistan were attending the conference and they laughed over it. Did Nigeria protest such an insult? Who dares do that! That joke caught in prime time world communication broadcast was splashed on the world media and it registered prominently.

The joke was on Nigeria but the aspect of it is that Nigeria does not seem to know that it has become a big joke all over the world. One, its leaders present it as a ‘giant’ but the world really knows it as a corporate Lilliputian. It presents a façade of unity and peace but the world including it knows that there is neither unity nor peace.

And there does not seem as any contemporary leader is thinking of changing that sorry narrative. But it is hoped that one day an Ataturk, a Lenin, a Chairman Mao/Deng Xiaoping or a Jerry Rawlings of Ghana will emerge to make Nigeria truly great and escape being the butt of cruel jokes..