Skitmakers are doing greater than cracking jokes. They’re quietly assembling a visible archive of what Nigerians snigger at, concern, and even hope for.
In Nigeria immediately, skitmakers will not be simply entertainers. A few of them have gotten the unofficial chroniclers of our lives: our habits, our desires, our struggles, our attitudes.
Via comedy, they converse the language of the road, the house, and even the annoyed graduate. They supply a mirror to the Nigerian society that’s each hilarious and painfully correct: how we speak, how we survive.
The sheer explosion of those creators on platforms like Instagram and TikTok has established them because the nation’s only and accessible cultural archivists, documenting the drama, the gbas gobs and the truth of our each day lives.
However do they actually seize historical past as we all know it?
Layi Wasabi
Isaac Olayiwola, higher referred to as Layi Wasabi, comes from Osun State and studied legislation at Bowen College. He’s certainly one of Nigeria’s fastest-rising skitmakers, seeing over three million followers on the web inside three years. Layi’s humour is satirical, and targeted on the absurdities of the system. hroughout this time, he created a number of characters to entertain his viewers.
His signature character, “The Regulation,” a struggling, over-sized-suit carrying lawyer whose workplace is actually underneath a tree, is a poignant satire on the crippled authorized and financial panorama, exhibiting the battle of younger professionals to ‘make it’ in an surroundings that’s removed from enabling. What makes Layi stand out is how he builds fictional on a regular basis characters: the wandering lawyer, Mr Richard (a get-rich-quick schemer), “professors” who grill college students, and so on.
His skits not often depend on particular results or large settings. Layi makes use of straightforward settings, plausible dialogue, and sharp observations. He steers away from express content material, sustaining family-friendly scripts, in order that they are often shared by many, throughout class divides. In an interview with Okay Africa, he mentioned he goals for “easy when it comes to dialogue … plots simple to know.”
However why does this matter? As a result of when Layi exhibits “The Regulation” going from case to case, or a scholar attempting to clarify a nasty JAMB rating, you see shared Nigerian anxieties. You see find out how to take care of authority. You see find out how to survive the training system. hustle principally!
These are small tales however huge elements of our lived historical past. His skits are micro-essays on what Nigerians undergo in addition to the the coping mechanisms of the under-served center class.
If future generations ask, “How did folks view legal professionals, college students, hustlers in 2025?” Layi Wasabi’s skits shall be a part of their proof.
Gilmore
Muhammed Opeyemi, popularly referred to as Gilmore, has earned his title because the “King of Relatability” by specializing in the common experiences of rising up in Nigeria. His rise exhibits how relatability generally is a historian’s software too. Gilmore’s model is formed by what folks round him create and share, usually imploring sarcasm, darkish humour, and on a regular basis dialogues.
His skits thrives on collective nostalgia, proving to his hundreds of thousands of viewers that “All of us lived the identical lives.” Gilmore captures these small, hyper-specific cultural moments which kind our shared collective reminiscence. Via humour, his work is unmistakably a digital time capsule of the millennial and Gen Z Nigerian childhood.
In an episode of Pulse On The Record, Gilmore acknowledged how being referred to as “only a skit maker” can really feel limiting, however he embraces being versatile.
His newest run, monitoring the behaviours and day-in-the-life of present-day careers and personalities, actually drives residence how tuned in Gilmore is to society. Hundreds and 1000’s of feedback on his Instagram posts will agree with us and him.
However what historical past will we see by means of Gilmore’s work? The stress between aspiration and limitation. His content material whispers how class impacts who will get respect, or who will get to chase desires, or who will get ignored. He offers voice to many who really feel boxed in.
Maraji
Gloria Oloruntobi, referred to as Maraji, began with lip-sync movies, then moved into full role-play skits, switching accents, altering vocal pitches. Maraji is a pioneer and a grasp of character research. She gained notoriety for taking part in a number of characters inside one video, making versatility her signature.
Maraji skits usually discover household, romantic relationships, gender norms, fertility, and motherhood. In that, Maraji does one thing historians dream of: she captures ladies’s inside lives in Nigerian social circumstances.
Historical past normally ignores the each day life and strain ladies felt, like how society managed their our bodies, the strain to get married and have youngsters, and the troublesome compromises they needed to make inside their very own households.
Maraji’s genius lies in her potential to effortlessly change accents and personas inside a single skit, embodying the important mom, the dramatic aunty, and the totally different scholar varieties.
When she delivers skits on the “Struggles of African Houses,” she’s not simply cracking a joke, she’s documenting a shared, multi-ethnic expertise of African parenting and the generational divides that outline our properties.
Maraji places these in entrance, utilizing humour and empathy. Her skits are secure areas to speak about what many silently endure.
Mind Jotter
Mind Jotter (Chukwuebuka Emmanuel Amuzie) is one other famous person skitmaker who has mirrored the profound disillusionment and crippling frustration of the Nigerian youth, notably by means of his satirical portrayal of the obligatory Nationwide Youth Service Corps (NYSC) programme.
His character is the definition of a “Pissed off Corper,” who approaches instructing with nonchalance, not zeal. In his classroom, educational principle is changed by harsh road actuality about relationships, societal norms, and the hard-won knowledge that ensures survival within the Nigerian economic system.
He teaches his students that so far as Nigeria is worried, “Occupation is solely anyplace you end up.” As an instance, he factors out that fellow comic Craze Clown (Emmanuel Ogonna Iwueke), a certified medical physician from Ukraine, discovered better success in skit-making. This joke completely captures the truth of an economic system that forces graduates to desert their levels to pursue the hustle, guaranteeing his skits are each hilarious and deeply important.
