Tag: Humour

THE 2015 general elections may undoubtedly rank as one of the most bitterly fought polls in the history of Nigeria. All across the country, stories abound of families and age-long relationships that were torn apart by political party affiliations. The elections would also be remembered for bringing out the creativity and ingenuity (though sometimes overtly mischievous) in many Nigerians, who turned to the social media platforms to express their feelings.

The comic cases, which brought a sort of comic relief to the tension and apprehensions to the elections, especially the hate campaign of the ruling now-turned-opposition party, were recorded across the country. From Badagry, where siblings kept faith with the old adage that blood is thicker than water despite belonging to different political camps, to other parts of the country, humour and odd scenes played out.

Residents of Badagry, Lagos State, woke up to a bright sunny day last Saturday, the day of the governorship and House of Assembly elections. With the cool breeze from the ocean, the residents were sure prepared to vote for candidates of their choice in the polls billed to start in a few hours time.

In midst of the activities, two siblings in opposing political parties, the All Progressives Congress(APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), prepared for the day’s battle in no other place than in the heart of their family house in Badagry.

The two candidates, Alhaja Safurat Layode Abdukareem, was the deputy governorship candidate of the PDP, while her brother, Hon. Olanrewaju Layode, was contesting to represent Badagry Constituency 1, in the Lagos State House of Assembly on the APC platform.  Though they didn’t contest for the same position, there was the need for them to protect the interests of their various parties.

With this, their language of communication, which had always been the same, instantly took a different turn like the biblical story of Tower of Babel where the people, who initially spoke one language and understood themselves, began to speak in different languages that were only known to the speakers.

So was the situation last weekend at the Layode’s compound when the contenstants spoke in the languages best understood by their party members instead of the one that the family would ordinarily use when they are together. Instead of Eegun, the language of the people of the area, everything that PDP and APC stood for became the new language of communication.

And eagerly, journalists, observers, security agents and other visitors to the area waited to see how this unfolding drama would play out, especially with the social media currently awash with stories of how a man allegedly beheaded his wife for belonging to another political party.

Shortly after the accreditation exercise began, the brother, in a chat with The Nation, fired the first salvo when he emphatically said his sister, Jimi Agbaje’s running mate, would lose. She lost gallantly here during the presidential and National Assembly elections and would equally lose today,” he said.

He didn’t stop there as he took another damning shot, saying that the sister’s days in the PDP were over.

But if you think you were about to witness a violent political war between siblings, you soon realised that you got it all wrong. Contrary to the fears of many that the election was going to tear the family apart, he emphatically said that there was no reason for him and his sister and their supporters to fight because of politics. “We are not vying for the same position, so why should we or our supporters fight?  Even if we are contesting for the same position, nothing on earth would ever tear us apart,” he said.

And perhaps to confirm what her brother had said, Alhaja Safurat also echoed his line of thought. She noted that being in a different political party from his brother should not bring about any quarrel, adding:” In my family, we were all given the freedom to belong to wherever we want; so, there shouldn’t be any reason to fight. We are one family.

“I am a Nigerian and a firm believer in the unity of the country. I cherish the peaceful co-existence and well being of the people and do not believe in fighting or making trouble over anything.  There is no reason for anybody to make trouble because of election, because there are only two options; it is either you win or you lose. My brother will always remain my brother. I don’t have control over whatever he wants to become in life and neither does he have over me.”

With their heartwarming statements, the mood was set that the election was going to be peaceful and carried out in a convivial atmosphere and so it was.

The exercise was actually a family affair without anybody attempting to harass or intimidate anybody. The usual hostility among party members and agents on election ground was totally absent.  They all related peacefully, ate and drank together as if they were feasting.   The patriarch of the family, Pa Salaam Layode, said it all: “Both of them are my children and I have to give both of them my support.”

And by the time voting ended, the brother and his APC came tops. Despite the loss, the sister never betrayed any sign of animosity towards her brother, maintaining that there was no winner and no vanquished. Alhaja Safurat urged everybody to take the outcome in good fate, saying that the election, from what she observed, was free and fair and needless for anybody to take to any form of protest or violence.

Her mien endeared her to everybody and she continued to relate humbly and mingled freely with almost everybody in the community, calling each of them by their names. Speaking with The Nation shortly after voting ended, the soft-spoken woman said: “I don’t have to become what I am not because I want the people to vote for me and my party.  I think I am just who I am.

“This is the way I am and I can never pretend to be what I am not. One thing you should realise is that our attitude is like smoke and you can never cover it. No matter how you try to cover your real attitude, it must certainly come to the fore at one point or the other.  These are my people and no matter who I am or what I become in life, all of them, irrespective of the status, are my people. “

In the convivial spirit that typified the election in the area, the brother teased her sister, saying: “My sister would soon quit the PDP to join the progressive party, APC. Our family has always belonged to progressive parties, but I guess she joined the PDP because of marriage. She would soon return to where she truly belongs.”

Responding, the sister said: “They have always joked about me defecting to the APC.  I have not done that for the past 12 years and I don’t think I want to do that. I am comfortable where I am.  It is their opinion that it was marriage that made me to join the PDP. My membership of the PDP has nothing to do with my family. That is my brother’s personal opinion.”

Humour is by far the most significant activity of the human brain. The validity of this statement significantly played out in the build-up to and during the general elections. The elections also brought out the creativity and ingenuity in most Nigerians, as young Nigerians seize the opportunity to offer a comic relief in order to douse the tensions generated in the course of the elections with witty ‘inventions’ in the form of annotated pictures and internet memes.

Interestingly, some of the pictures were created by computer whiz kids, using the graphics applications like Photoshop and other packages used in creating caricatures and life activities in pictures.

Another means employed by these young Nigerians is to source for pictures of the activities of the major contenders. A particular interesting comic was that of President Goodluck Jonathan hailing his supporters during a campaign in the South West. The comic voice said: “Fellow Nigerians, bye bye o, I don dey go to Otuoke be that o.  Make una cooperate with Gen Buhari, my successor. One nation, my people.”

These humour merchants are neither comedians or professional film makers but ordinary Nigerian youths empowered with nothing, but smart phones and laptops. With these tools, they create annotated pictures which are transferred as internet memes through the social media. The presidential election mostly witnessed these memes with lots of creations from the ludicrous, the mundane and the amusing, which could be easily taken to be the true account of the moment.

Every aspect of the presidential election, starting from the party primaries to the campaign, the scoring of cheap points with the defamation of character, the tensions of results collation, the Orubebe gaffe and other happenstances did not escape the knowledge of these computer nerds.  Some of the intrigues, actions and drama captured by these acts are captured below.

To capture the nature of the struggle for the presidency between the ruling PDP and the opposition APC, a picture showing two naked boys struggling for a tyre, captioned ‘2015 Election,’ was made in the form of a drama, with the boy representing the PDP, saying “No it belongs to me o”, to which the other boy, the APC, replied, “but you have been playing with it for long. Don’t be selfish”.

Aware of the fact that job creation was a major issue used to canvass for votes by both parties, with the incumbent claiming to have created jobs, another smart humour merchant took to the computer to make mockery of the president’s claim by releasing a funny picture of two young men peeping from an opening of a tarmac by the side of the road with the caption, “Nigerians be like… We are looking for the 1.5 million jobs that GEJ said he created”.

It will be recalled that there was serious tension during the collation of results by INEC. As people waited with baited breath to hear the final declaration, some of these gifted Nigerians released pictures to capture the mood of Nigerians. A hilarious photo, which came into focus, was that of woman sitting in front of the TV carefully compiling results with different calculators, with the comment: “Before INEC calculator messes up”.

Not just satisfied with creating caricatures based on the mood of the moments, they went further to gauge the mood of the president as the election results continue to tickle in with Gen. Buhari leading.  The humourists created a picture of a doctor diagnosing GEJ with a blood temperature instrument, with the GEJ lamenting: “Sai Baba, you will not kill me o”.

Platforms for social engagement like Twitter and Facebook were not left out with funny tweets emanating from Nigerians. “You Rivers me, I kano you, you Enugu me, I Kaduna you. You Bayelsa me, I Jigawa you, you Abia me, I Katsina you, you Akwa Ibom me, I Borno you, you Ekiti me, I Kogi you…counter attack #nagodwin”, wrote a twitter user with the handle @iPoison.

In Oyo State, aside from the fact that five candidates were battling for the top office, elections in the state have always been known as a battle for the lion-hearted. On Election Day, as we stepped out in readiness to monitor the conduct of the election for the day, a colleague suddenly blurted out, “It is not by power, neither is it by might; it is all about wisdom and brain.”

His statement was of course a subtle advice for the media team to apply wisdom in their coverage of the election, bearing in mind the tension that had trailed the campaigns.

Interestingly, in place of the anticipated violence, scenes which have endeared the elections to many people, played out in different parts of the state.

At Iwo-Ate, in Ogo-Oluwa Local Government Area, a sleepy town with about 100 mud houses, aged women braved the elements to stay on the queue for hours just to cast their votes. A similar scenario was observed at Akanran in Ona-Ara Local Government Area of the state. Here, over 80 percent of the voters found on the queue were aged women in their late 80s.

An Octogenarian, Mrs Adunola Gbadamosi, said she was very happy to be part of the election process that would produce credible leaders in the state. This is what we have to do as long as we are still living, to lead the way for the younger generation to follow, even when we are no more. And we are happy to be out here to cast our votes as responsible members of the community.”

At Yemetu, Idi-Arere, Idi-kan , Inalende, Opoyosa, Popoyemoja,Mapo, Born-Foto and other local areas, generally regarded as crisis-prone areas of Ibadan,voting was done without any act of violence.

Everywhere visited in the state, voting was peaceful, with no fighting or bickering. All the eligible voters adhered to the instructions set out by INEC officials and the orderliness was impressive.

In Ondo State, poverty seemed to have played a prominent role in the conduct of the election. Beginning from the Wednesday preceding the Election Day, scores of residents of the capital city found a sudden succour in the provision of the now popular ‘stomach infrastructure’ by the state government. Not willing to be left out of the largesse, many residents rushed to the Alagbaka Government House to partake in the sharing of what they all agreed was their commonwealth.

And many believed that this tactics employed by the state government may have influenced the outcome of the state assembly elections. Money was freely distributed by agents of a particular party as voters queued to vote. You immediately became a beneficiary of the wads of crisp notes as soon as you showed proof that you had thumb-printed the space allocated to that particular party.

Commercial drivers, who tried to play a fast one, had raw deals in the hands of security agents who manned the Igbara-Oke military check-point. Trailer drivers, numbering about 50, were left stranded for the duration of the poll.

Overall, the conduct of the governorship and state assembly elections in Plateau State was very peaceful. However, the peaceful conduct of the poll was tainted by a single act of violence allegedly instigated by a young man, who was later identified as Salim.

Said to be an agent of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Salim allegedly attacked some security agents, accusing them of insulting him. In anger, one of the security agents was said to have opened fire on the young man. The security agents accused him of attempting to snatch a ballot box.