Playful Subjects of Lack: The Underside of Humour in the Nigerian Unconscious

Abstract “We play too much in this country” is a popular and handy response to funny statements or events and an affirmation of Nigerians’ aptitude for humour. This comic impulse in the Nigerian unconscious has been variously seen as a means of releasing stress, coping with harsh realities, critiquing social and political situations, and even enhancing democracy. While acknowledging these observations, two more fundamental questions arise: Why does humour proliferate in Nigeria? And how does this tendency work against the nation? To attend to these questions, we explore three forms of humour: jokes, conversational humour, and accidental humour. The data analysed in this article were collected from Twitter, Facebook, and reports on national events in Nigerian newspapers. The analysis is anchored on Todd McGowan’s theory of the comic as a coincidence of lack and excess. The findings show that the increasing production of humour in various forms is a symptom of a fundamental lack, a defectiveness in the country’s socio-political and socioeconomic reality, and that these playful responses to situations trivialise the problems, weaken confrontational impulses, and heighten legal and moral laxity. Thus, as Nigerians we are “amusing ourselves to death”.