Is Humor Still an Effective Coping Mechanism for Nigerians?

For many Nigerians, humor is the first response to a national issue — the fuel price hike, inflation, and, recently, the exorbitanttariff increase by network providers.

It is a running theme and a sort of collective understanding that no matter the seriousness of the situation or its impact on the extent of the nation's well-being, a certain level of levity often emerges signaling what psychologists and mental health experts describe as a coping mechanism.

In a study on the “Nigerian Cultural Concept of Humor and Its Use as a Coping Strategy,” Felix-Kingsley Obialo writes, "Humour is also a political weapon that provides relief from bad governance and a contemporary means of survival in the face of unemployment."

Aanu Jide-Ojo, a clinical psychologist who focuses on clients who have experienced religious, relational and identity trauma, says a significant factor why humor is relied on is what Nigerians have access to. Some people lean into the community through religion, friendships, parties, social media, etc. Others transfer or channel the aggression and use it as motivation or inspiration to create."

Ojo says humor often replaces emotions we aren't empowered to feel or process. "We know Nigeria is not a psychologically safe country where you can give feedback with your vote or tweet. We have very few spaces where we can vocalize our feelings without getting punished, and when change happens, it comes at a great cost. So what feels accessible, then? Humor."

Humor as inaction?

A significant reason why humor is often viewed negatively is that it can promote inaction. Themajor movements and demonstrations have adopted a more serious and urgent tone, influencing how people respond to those issues.

Angel Yinkore, a Nigerian behavioral therapist, says that although humor is necessary, especially in a country with mounting and interconnected issues, the biggest challenge is knowing when to take things seriously and when to resort to humor "I think sometimes you need to lighten certain situations," Yinkore says. "But how light should you go? Humor does take away from the seriousness of certain conversations to a certain degree."

Ojo agrees that humor has been integral to surviving the Nigerian reality. "It has contributed to our survival for the most part because there are multiple layers of how we are affected by what is happening, and it can get overwhelming to process all at once. So humor is a cooling device to withstand the heat," Ojo says.

History shows that anger, sustained over time, can translate into revolutionary action. In her 1981 keynote speech titled The Uses of Anger: Women Responding To Racism, Audre Lorde says, "... anger expressed and translated into action in the service of our vision and our future is a liberating and strengthening act of clarification, for it is in the painful process of this translation that we identify who are our allies with whom we have grave differences, and who are our genuine enemies."

Psychologists like Ojo also agree that anger can have a galvanizing impact in response to social issues. "We don't often feel empowered enough to be angry or even know how to channel our anger. A good balance will be to hold space for both, where humor becomes a channel for anger. For example, political comedy has been used to illustrate systemic problems and can be a powerful tool. The problem is that when it is solely used to distract or minimize, it helps temporarily, but in the long term, we get stuck."

A way forward

As Yinkore sees it, there's no straightforward way of changing the status quo, but sensitization on the country's issues would help. "The first thing to do would be education," Yinkore says. "Educate the people about issues facing the country. We need an overhaul of our religious and political systems."

Ojo says community is a helpful alternative to collectively dealing with and processing these issues. Mutual aid and communities will save us. I love all the third spaces popping up, and I'm grateful to the NGOs working to fill the gap between advocacy and education. Understanding history and systems will also help contextualize what we are experiencing.

Experts say the core issue is a feeling of powerlessness due to the internalization of systemic problems as personal failures. "When you know what is your fault and what isn't, you have more compassion for yourself and deeper empathy for other people," Ojo adds. "Rather than depending on humor to escape, you are more empowered to advocate for your rights and less likely to blame yourself for what you had little control over."