Art Review- 2016 Must-Have: ‘Humour According To Nigerians’

There are books that will change your life. There are books that will comfort you when you need it the most. There are books that are guilty pleasures. And then there is ‘Humour According to Nigerians’. Never before in recent time has one single collection of words, pictures, stories and experiences been so packed full of joy, laughter, the kind that brings you to the brink of tears and pushes you over. You will enjoy the fall.

Undoubtedly, this is the book you want to start your year with.

Produced by the leading humour content company on the continent – Funny Africa –  ‘Humour According to Nigerians’ is an exhaustive collection of uniquely Nigerian experiences, vernacular, stories, memes, and our very colourful voices online, for your reading and rib-cracking pleasure. Nowhere else in the country or on the continent, will you find a collection that pools together the things you might have seen on TV, heard in passing, in conversations, might not have heard of at all, but the common denominator being that it made you laugh till you cried.

Released in December, it’s a most timely piece of work. As everyone who hasn’t been living in a cave knows, Nigeria is currently on a tightrope. Exchange rates, fuel price challenges have even the most optimistic citizens struggling to crack a smile. With this book you will do so much more. Who doesn’t need a distraction in these times?

‘Humour According to Nigerians’ is just what the doctor ordered.

The book will be at once familiar to every reader, especially one active online. Divided into Funny Posts, Funny Stories, Funny Memes and Funny Pictures, it draws directly from the ocean of daily jokes, experiences, tweeted, Instagrammed, posted on Facebook in real time. Throwbacks to the water bottles we carried back in secondary school, how Nigerians act when they travel to America for the first time, how our mothers ordered us around in the name of errands and discipline or the wild and wacky scenes – and many grammatical bombs in the name of translation – from Nollywood movies – it is all there!

The book is available at Terra Kulture, The Hub, Glendora bookstores and in the hands of your favourite vendor.

Here, some excerpts from the book…

Funny Stories

“Just ran into my father in traffic and he refused to let my car get in front of his even after seeing me….Sigh whoever thought traffic will be a source of familybetrayal.”

• Babamileke

“One day as I was coming down from the bus, I just noticed everyone gasped and there was shock on their faces….I turned back to find out what could be wrong and I was met with the same face from people behind. I became scared because I was the only one without the face. I   finally summoned courage to look for what was on me that might be causing such reactions from people; sadly my wig had become attached to the tip of the bus so I walking around with my skull cap”

• Stella B

“I won’t lie, when things are hard, they are hard. I somehow made some money enough to buy my mother a car. She drove it to work one day and came back home without the car. I asked her, very politely, what happened to the car. Her eyes were suddenly wide open, she had forgotten she drove there and had taken the bus back home. God will help us.”

• Tunde L